though, so things were still boring.
Taylor was getting plenty of practice bouncing around, onto, and off of rooftops though, and was doing her best to get her 'wall jumps'
working well on various kinds of wall. She had figured out how to attach one of her body cameras to the top of the control hexagon on the jump harness and wanted to see what the footage would look like later. Dennis was quite jealous of her antics, but initially switched to excited when she mentioned that Dragon was trying to figure out how to make more of the harnesses. Then he shifted to depressed with a comment about never being able to save up for one?
"Why would you have problems saving up?" Taylor asked after landing next to Dennis. "I mean, most of the supplies I have seen you use seem to be standard reams of the unusually cheap, rougher copy paper?"
Dennis turned his head in what Taylor thought was probably an evaluating gaze, then tapped a couple of points on his helmet before speaking over the radio. Taylor noted that she couldn't hear him speaking with her ears despite being right next to him. "I've told the others about this anyway, so might as well tell you too. Most of my money that isn't going to my trust fund is actually going towards my father's medical bills," Dennis explained, sounding very down. "As such my personal upgrade budget is basically nonexistent.
Tinkertech like that harness won't come out of my costume stipend."
"Oh, sorry. I didn't know."
"You wouldn't have, while it isn't really a secret I don't tend to talk about it. Outside of my family I think the Wards and a couple of people in the PRT are the only ones I have mentioned it to at all,
though I do know my mother has informed the school. One of the reasons I pulled three shift days in a row and volunteered for a double on Sunday was so that I can head to Medhall after school every day to be with my father as much as possible during his next treatment. So, yea. Don't worry too much about keeping it to yourself. I would just appreciate it if you didn't spread it around at school."
"Heads up you two," Carlos interrupted, sounding apologetic for it.
"We got an armed group just around the next corner. Mostly knives,
one obvious handgun, but they look to be preparing to cause trouble."
Dennis tapped his helmet again, apparently undoing whatever he did so he wasn't able to be heard normally. "Right, any word on if we should engage?"
"I checked in with the console. We are clear to engage if they appear hostile on approach."
Dennis obviously looked over at Taylor. "So Maul, want to lead the way, see what they do?"
"Sure," Taylor said, grinning a little. She looked up at Carlos, who waved her on. So she wandered around the corner and took in the sight of the group of men, looked like a bunch of ABB. Raising her voice a little she called out. "Hello boys, what's up?"
The group of thugs looked at Taylor, and the one with the handgun leered. "Hello there kid, here to have some fun?"
"I suspect we have very different views of what would be fun right now," Taylor said, tilting her head to the side. "And for the kind I think you are talking about, you aren't my type."
"Grab her and tie her up," handgun yelled. "She can be our post-raid entertainment."
Taylor grinned as the group moved towards her. In her book that counted as hostile. She flipped the collapsible baton into her left hand and grabbed the wok off her back with her right.
She might go easy on them. After all, they had made good on their offer of some fun. Then again, that wouldn't be as fun for her...
Dennis watched the ambulance pull away with the last of the gang members that Taylor had incapacitated. She had opened up with the collapsible baton and brained the guy with the gun first. Then she had waded in with the wok, alternating between swinging it for maximum damage and using as a shield.
The gang members had initially laughed at her choice of weapon,
one asking if she was planning on cooking them dinner. Dennis suspected that they would never look at a wok the same way again.
He certainly wasn't going to.
He turned and looked at the police van also being loaded. In contrast to the group that was taken away by ambulance that group had been taken out by him and Carlos. Dennis had decided to get some 'paper stairs' practice in for getting around back of them while Carlos had dropped into the middle of them. While they still had minor injuries they didn't have concussions or broken bones.
Dennis then turned to look at Taylor, who was wiping some blood spatter off of the wok with a cloth. The thing was undamaged despite being used as a knife shield a couple of times. The blood had come from the only time she hit someone directly with the wok, nailing them in the face with the loop handle opposite her grip and knocking a tooth out when he tried to gank her from behind. That was also the only blood that had been shed in the entire fight despite the knives and blunt force injuries.
Finally he shook his head and spoke up. "So, er, yea. Normally I prank people at least once. Leave them frozen in an embarrassing way or something like that in public, even though I get punishment duty for each incident due to it technically being a minor case of assault with my power. I'm sure you have seen some of the clips on PHO of me getting the other Wards. You, however, get a pass on that. Mainly because right now you scare me too much and are allowed to hit me when I piss you off."
"Somewhat more of an encouraged to hit you when you piss me off,"
Taylor admitted, swinging the wok back onto her back. "I have a foam bat so I am less likely to injure you when I do, even."
"I am suddenly even happier about my decision," Dennis mumbled,
then rubbed his arm where he had landed wrong when a piece of paper he had been using in his paper stairs trick had decided to stop being frozen unexpectedly. "Now if only my power came with a timer."
Taylor blinked at that, though suspected Dennis didn't expect her to hear it at all. "What kind of timer?"
"Oh, er," Dennis faltered, apparently shocked Taylor had heard him.
"Well, uh."
"He has issues with not having any clue how long something he freezes will stay frozen," Carlos answered instead. "He complains about the lack of knowing when things will unfreeze every so often,
most commonly when something unfroze too early or when he has accidentally trapped something in place and it just doesn't want to unfreeze."
"Oh," Taylor said, thinking. "I wonder if your snark can do anything about that?"
Hey. Is there any reason you don't tell Dennis how long things will be frozen for?
[Elaboration]
Huh, so you don't know how long you can hold onto things? That sucks. Can he cancel it early instead?
[Agreement]
How does he cancel it early? He doesn't seem to know.
[... Embarrassment]
"Ummm, Taylor?" Dennis suddenly spoke up. "Why do I suddenly feel like I have a mental off switch for my power?"
"Your snark forgot to enable the manual cancel button," Taylor said.
"It is kinda embarrassed about having forgotten. It can't give you a timer because it never knows how long it can hold something for either."
Thanks for fixing your oversight.
Dennis looked at one of the pieces of paper he had recovered to stow in his costume, littering being something heroic Wards were encouraged to not do. He lifted it up in front of him and froze it. He let go, prodded it, and then held it again. A moment later it flopped over, no longer frozen, well before the normal thirty second minimum time things normally stayed frozen for. "Holy crap. I can turn it off now. Thank you!" He continued to freeze and unfreeze the piece of paper, then started playing with a rock as well. "This is awesome!"
"Aegis to console," Carlos said over the main console channel,
shaking his head at Dennis's antics. "Please note that Maul has influenced Clockblocker's power, granting him the ability to manually unfreeze objects he has frozen. Maul reports that this was an oversight on the part of his power that has now been corrected."
"Console acknowledges," came back. Taylor wondered if Missy's bigger pocket trick had been reported? But, since that didn't happen
while Missy was on patrol it didn't need to be reported. The reporting rules on new or improved abilities were a bit weird, now that she thought about it, since only things that came up on duty or in official power testing sessions needed to be reported at all.
When the three Wards made it back to the PRT building Taylor was asked to copy off her body camera footage for review. She did so,
and a PRT officer watched it with her. They commented on a couple of her early wall jumps before fast-forwarding to the actual fight. The peaceful arrests being caught on the camera were noted for later.
What followed was a careful review of everything the camera had captured, a quick check of various rules and regulations, and Taylor getting a sign-off on her actions by the officer. The footage would be provided to the police department as evidence in the various arrests and Taylor was encouraged to split off some of the wall jumping antics as well as the violent fight to post online, provided she included the initial comments the gang members made towards her.
Taylor was a bit surprised at the last one, but figured it wouldn't hurt.
If she posted it tonight maybe tomorrow people would be a bit more wary of talking about her in disrespectful ways at school?
She headed back to the Wards common area and hooked the body camera into her tablet to download the footage. After some quick editing Taylor had saved the two video clips, posted them online, and made a thread for each of them on PHO. She had then changed back into her civilian clothing and headed home. Taking the time to think as she drove she made a decision. If Amy already knew and hadn't been able to help then there was nothing to be done and all Taylor would be doing was letting Amy know that Taylor knew. If Amy didn't know then Taylor felt it was justified to inform Amy. Having made her decision Taylor fired a couple of text messages off.
Half an hour later, as Taylor was eating dinner with her father, Amy responded. Taylor smiled, Dennis may have a much better weekend than he thought.
Thursday morning came with what would normally have been depressing news, though Taylor now merely saw it as yet another thing needed due to snarks. Still, she watched the news report on the Slaughterhouse Nine surfacing in a largely unknown town in Texas last night, the town only notable due to having a number of capes on both sides of the law. This meant that the standard call from the public for kill orders against most of the Nine had begun again. Currently only Crawler, Mannequin, and the Siberian had kill orders, with the Siberian's being from before joining the Nine. Taylor suspected that the other two were somewhat deliberate. Crawler probably encouraged the kill order and she had been told that Mannequin had issues.
Riley was actually barred from having a kill order issued against her due to fear of a dead-man's switch releasing a plague if someone pulled it off and didn't incinerate her body and every potential hidden location she could have stashed something in. Taylor had found that interesting when Riley had mentioned it because Riley admitted she had considered doing just that. It never happened because Amanda had 'pulled rank' as her mother and vetoed it. The public didn't know that, so they took that possibility and ran with it. As a result they usually demanded that Bonesaw be captured, not killed, in the interest of public safety.
That and regardless of her age she still looked like a child, and issuing kill orders against kids didn't sit well with people.
When the news anchor started getting repetitive Taylor sighed and turned off the TV. She knew from previous Slaughterhouse incidents that she now had at least a week of highly repetitive news to look forward to. Oh well, she had to get moving to make it to school on time anyway. At least this was likely to distract from people talking about Maul, right?
"ARRRRGH," Taylor yelled as the garage door closed behind her at home that afternoon. The entire school had decided that talking
about Maul was a wonderful way to avoid talking about the Slaughterhouse Nine. Theories about Maul's powers and personality crossed paths with attempts to figure out her measurements and sexual preferences from available data. The fight video had done nothing to curb any of it and the wall jumping had them wondering just what her powers actually were. She wanted to go hit something,
to decimate what was left in the junkyard, but had promised her father that she'd take care of some things at home this afternoon.
Not to mention that Kurt and Lacey were coming over for dinner and to see her.
At least Amy had let her know in English class that she was being dropped off at Medhall by Vicky immediately after school. Apparently nobody from Medhall had ever contacted New Wave and New Wave had only really worked with Brockton General normally, but they pounced on the idea of Panacea making a visit.
Taylor dropped her school stuff off in her room before working her way through her quick list of outside chores she had promised to take care of. Most of it was trivial cleanup of trash that had blown into the yard. Once that was done she headed in to prep the lasagna she had said she would make for dinner.
She was in the middle of prepping some garlic bread to go in the oven later when Riley texted her. Apparently attempting to build and install a Bluetooth module inspired by Taylor's had caused major brain damage to today's test subject. On the other hand, said test subject was a known pedophile and was no longer threatening to rape Riley, so in Riley's book it was all good.
Taylor wasn't sure if she should he happy about the situation or not.
After a few minutes of thought on the matter she decided she wasn't going to figure that out anytime soon and went back to preparing dinner, though she did ask Riley if the brain damage was due to installing the interfaces or because too much electricity was pushed through them.
The 'ooooops' that came back was not quite reassuring, and Taylor was wondering just how lucky she had been when the fugue happened.
Taylor looked up from cutting the freshly baked garlic bread as she heard a car pull into the driveway. Her father was upstairs, so that was probably Kurt and Lacey. That was made more likely by the heavy banging on the front door a minute later, given that the doorbell had been intentionally non-operational for a couple of years and all the family friends knew it.
Taylor put the knife she was using down and walked to the front door. She checked, just to be safe, and saw that it was indeed Kurt and Lacey, so she opened the door.
"Taylor!" Lacey said, pouncing before Taylor could get a word in,
engulfing Taylor in a hug and getting one of her hands under Taylor's shirt in the process, causing Taylor to flinch at a cold feeling that was probably a ring or something hitting her skin. "Danny told us about the horrible things that those horrible girls did to you in that horrible school. And then that horrible Glory Girl put you back in the hospital!"
"I am not sure if that is too many horribles or too few," Taylor mumbled. "And Vicky isn't usually that bad."
"Probably too many and too few horribles," Kurt said, pushing them further into the house so he could close the door behind him. "I guess you probably know Glory Girl better than we do, though, since you have been seen with her socially and attend the same school now."
"Any chance I can go finish cutting up the garlic bread?" Taylor asked. It was a valid concern, right? And a good reason to no longer be in Lacey's death-grip hug.
"I'll get that, actually," Kurt replied. "Given that I don't think Lacey is willing to let you go yet."
"I don't suppose I get to be released to eat?" Taylor tried as Kurt headed into the kitchen. "The lasagna is best before it cools down too much and all."
"I'll agree with her," Danny said as he came down the stairs.
"Besides, it will be quite hard for you to eat if you won't release Taylor."
"Stupid logic," Lacey mock-grumbled, releasing Taylor after another squeeze. The three of them then moved into the kitchen where Kurt had made quick work of the rest of the garlic bread and had started cutting up the lasagna. Everyone sat down and dug into dinner, the consensus appearing to be that further discussion could wait until they had eaten.
Once everyone had their fill they moved to the living room. Danny took his easy chair, but Kurt and Lacey dragged Taylor down onto the couch between them.
"So little one," Kurt said, poking Taylor. "How have you been? How's school?"
"I've been fine," Taylor said, poking Kurt back. "School's ok. I got a bit ahead of myself while I was stuck in the hospital, actually, so I don't have much homework for a bit."
"You know," Lacey said, grinning a little. "I was tempted to hunt Jacob down and slap him when I saw that clip of you riding a wrecking ball."
"What?" Taylor said, blinking. Danny sat up straighter. Kurt looked confused.
"Granted I didn't know for sure that it was you until I saw you out on the boardwalk," Lacey continued. "Then again, there aren't that many people that both know you well enough to tell and would ignore the supposed 'evidence' against the connection online. As
such I think Zoe might be able to figure it out, but I don't think anyone else would."
"What are you talking about?" Kurt asked, staring at Lacey. "Because I am very confused."
"The final confirmation, of course, was when we came in and I hugged you," Lacey said, holding up her hand to show Taylor. She had an extra ring on her middle finger, which had apparently discolored to a pinkish hue. Actually, it was more like it was slowly falling apart as they watched. "One shot cape detector ring made by a tinker in Lustrum's employ, just requires a second or two of skin contact with a cape and it will cool off and shock the wearer. Your mother swiped a box of them when she left the movement. She paid off her college loans selling all but a few of them to the PRT. I think Zoe ended up with a couple too, but they can't actually be used by capes because they trigger if anyone touching them is a cape."
"I had wondered where she got that money," Danny admitted. "But I never bothered to ask."
"Not like I need them anyway," Taylor finally admitted, slumping back into the couch.
"I am very confused," Kurt said, looking around at everyone else.
"Are you saying little Taylor is a cape?"
"Maul, to be specific," Taylor said, figuring that there was no use pretending otherwise at this point. "I wonder if I need to get some NDAs delivered for you two now."
"Do you have any way to check?" Lacey asked.
"Most likely." Taylor pulled her personal phone from the holster she had it in, having left her Maul phone in her room, and ran a couple of queries. From there she ended up filling out a couple of digital forms.
"Looks like while I don't need you to it is highly recommended, so I filled out the requests."
"No problem," Lacey said, patting Taylor on the head. "I was kinda expecting that, since I assume you joined the Wards. Otherwise it would be quite odd for you to be publically hanging out with PRT therapists and the patrolling Wards."
They sat there for a minute before Taylor jumped a little. Poking her phone she read the email that had just come through. "Huh, they have already printed the NDAs and are sending them via rush delivery. I wonder what that mean..." Taylor trailed off and looked towards the kitchen. "What the hell was that?"
The other three watched Taylor jump up and run into the kitchen,
momentarily shocked into inaction due to not knowing what had set Taylor off. She had returned with a tinkertech box by the time any of them had recovered.
"Is that one of the PRT paperwork boxes?" Danny asked, getting up to take a closer look at it.
"Yep," Taylor said, putting it down on the coffee table. She then tapped the top of it with her left hand and it opened up. "With two NDA forms in it, apparently they mean it when they say rush?"
"That is kinda freaky," Kurt said, giving the box an odd look. "How did they target your kitchen?"
"Tinkers are bullshit?" Taylor offered, shrugging. "I mean, a fugue turned me into a living Bluetooth accessory, so the protectorate base having some kind of sensor that lets them target the kitchen here isn't that farfetched. It isn't like they don't know where I live. They can probably determine what building my phone is in too."
Kurt really looked like he wanted to ask questions, but was stopped by Lacey punching him in the arm. "We sign the NDAs, then we grill her." Kurt glared at her, but acquiesced.
A quick check and the two NDAs were split, one each handed to Kurt and Lacey. Danny fetched them a couple of pens as the tinkertech
paperwork box didn't include any. Fifteen minutes later they had read and signed the forms, and Taylor returned them to the box.
"I am so tempted to try and keep this thing in sight to see how it leaves," Taylor finally said. "But I suspect if I last long enough it will just wait until I fall asleep, then vanish."
Taylor finally picked the box up and brought it back to the kitchen.
She came back into the living room and dropped back onto the couch, glaring at the kitchen a moment later. "There it goes."
"How do you know it left?" Lacey asked, confused. "I didn't hear anything, or see any flash of light?"
"I think I am feeling a snark when the boxes come and go," Taylor answered. "But it isn't quite there, so I am not entirely sure."
"Snark?" Kurt and Lacey asked at the same time.
Taylor and Danny gave the two an overview of everything they were allowed to reveal. The two decided that Taylor's power drawing on Lewis Carroll was appropriate for Annette's daughter, making Taylor and Danny smile. Kurt laughed quite a bit when he found out about the anti-hero branding form, while Lacey was more amused hearing Taylor's views on PHO having built up her cover story for the public.
By accident, starting before anyone who knew to help it along was aware Taylor had triggered.
All humor left the two of them when they found how just how bad off Taylor had really been when Glory Girl punched her.
Finally the entire story that was going to be told had been told. Kurt and Lacey sat there digesting the information.
"I don't suppose there is any alcohol in the house?" Kurt finally asked. "Because I feel like I need some."
"Sorry," Danny replied. "I finished the last of the beer off while Taylor was in the hospital, and haven't picked up any more."
"Damn," Lacey whined. "We might have to go home to drink ourselves into a stupor over this."
"Probably better that you do," Taylor commented. "Then you don't have to sleep here because you drank too much to drive home."
For some reason Lacey didn't like that observation. Still, Kurt and Lacey stuck around for another hour before heading home. Once they had left Taylor tried to find out how the paperwork boxes came and went but found nothing at all on them that she could access beyond basic usage instructions and how the various secure opening methods were implemented. In fact, as far as the PRT documentation she could access indicated they had no special ability to move themselves around whatsoever.
Due to a projected rain shower that afternoon Taylor took the bus to school Friday morning and was thus entering the school from a different direction than normal. She had just made it to the door on that side of the building when she was intercepted.
"YOU!" Dennis yelled, running up to Taylor. "YOU, YOU, YOU!" He then grabbed Taylor in a hug and spun her around. "THANK YOU!"
"You're welcome," Taylor said, squirming in Dennis's arms. He was squeezing her quite tightly. "But shouldn't you be thanking Amy? I just mentioned things to her, she did all the work."
"Oh trust me," Amy said as she walked up. "He did. Quite a bit last night, and my ribs are still sore. I had to tell him that you let me know to get him to let me go. At least if he breaks your ribs I can fix them."
Taylor glared a little at Amy. "Still, I don't know why he never mentioned anything to me himself, given that I heal strangers with no expectation of payment all the time and all. Why would a friend's father be lower on my list?"
"Yeah, my family and I are probably all idiots," Dennis said, releasing Taylor as he rolled his eyes. "Because, you know, on top of that Amy here heals people primarily at Brockton General, including those dragged from across town and across the country just to be there when Amy is. No clue why any of us thought that my dad getting his cancer treated at the facilities at Medhall would have caught her attention normally. Plus Medhall is known to not send patients to Brockton General, ever, because they only take the patients that the Brockton General facilities are known to be unable to help with,
Panacea's visits aside."
"I cleared out nearly fifty terminal patients from Medhall last night,"
Amy added. "Most of them weren't responding to treatments at all,
and those few that were partially responding I was able to help them figure out which portions of the treatments were likely working when I healed them. The staff said they are donating a couple million dollars to the fund that ferries less fortunate people here from all over the country in thanks, since I don't accept payments directly."
"I overheard someone say something about contacting New Wave to have you visit monthly or something too," Dennis added. "Still,
Taylor, thanks for doing what I should have done a while ago."
"So, can we go inside before rumors about the two of us start?"
Taylor asked, looking around at the group of people that had been watching them. "Not that I don't like you, but I don't like you that way."
Dennis shivered at that, apparently he wasn't that enthused with the idea right now either.
"That isn't likely to be a problem," Amy said, leading them inside anyway. "The fact I visited Medhall to help with their terminal patients last night made the front page. Good publicity for New Wave, and Medhall is only barely coming out ahead due to their donation being mentioned. The reporter pointed out that having terminally ill patients not responding to treatments but not calling me in to help when they
were in Brockton Bay already was irresponsible unless the patients had specifically declined parahuman healing."
Amy turned out to be right, and the topic of discussion all day was Medhall being stupid. Taylor had, of course, been identified as the 'concerned friend who had alerted Panacea that the patients existed'
as part of the explanation for why Dennis had hugged her, once someone got the courage to ask about it. This spread quickly and resulted in five more students grabbing her for surprise thank you hugs throughout the day.
All of that left Taylor wishing that she had gotten Dennis's thank you over the weekend. In the Wards common room. Maybe in costume for good measure? Then she could have faded more into the background instead of becoming a 'non-parahuman student celebrity' as one of her teachers had put it when telling people to leave her alone during class.
Though Amy had also gotten a collection of apologies from students,
apparently everyone had assumed she was aware of but not willing to help the patients at Medhall. The realization that someone just had to mention things to her caused some previously unkind opinions of her to be overturned. After all, if nobody tells her someone is sick how is she supposed to know?
Dean had grabbed Taylor and Missy after school to drive them to the PRT building, with Amy joining them for a trip back to the Dallon household. Dean's excuses were that Taylor could show him the vehicle entrance, Missy already knew about the secret entrances,
and Amy shouldn't need to worry about taking the bus home.
Vicky might have been put out by this, but she was heading out on patrol with the Pelhams this afternoon and Amy hadn't wanted a trip home via flight in the rain. On the other hand, Carlos, Dennis, and Chris would definitely be put out by it once they found out what was going on. If only because of not knowing about the access keys class yet.
After Amy had been dropped off the remaining three entered through the parking garage, Taylor pointing out which wall they wanted. Once they were in they made their way into the Wards area from the parking area and all three got changed into their costumes. Dean and Missy were to patrol together this afternoon so that Chris and Carlos could hit one of the aerial routes for yet another test of his continually rebuilt modular hoverboard. As she couldn't fly this left Taylor to tag along with Dean and Missy.
Before anyone could leave, however, Taylor received a meeting request.
"Looks like Director Piggot wants to talk to me," Taylor called out,
causing Missy to groan and drop onto the couch. Dean hadn't actually finished putting his power armor on yet, so probably hadn't heard her. "I'll go see what she wants, you two can decide if you want to wait up for me."
"I'll check with Dean once he comes out," Missy said, pouting. "I hope you aren't in trouble."
Taylor quickly disarmed, leaving her weapons by one of the couches,
and threw a half-hearted wave at Missy as she headed off to visit the Director.
"Hello Maul," Director Piggot said as the door closed behind Taylor.
"How are you this afternoon?"
"I am doing well," Taylor said, shrugging. "I could have done with less attention at school, but that is apparently what I get for pointing obvious things out to people."
"Yes, well, PR was torn about that. For one, you made an affiliate look much better without improving the PRT's reputation. Then again, you didn't reveal yourself by accident, but should your identities ever be connected you are currently running a positive reputation on both identities which would be good in the long run.
Speaking of which, I would like to congratulate you on your restraint in the fight Wednesday night, given the threat made against you.
Overall reports indicate that you avoided additional damage after putting any given enemy combatant down, and the one person you broke more than two bones on was seen coming back for more three times on your body camera."
"That guy was persistent, though he did inspire me to start with breaking a leg instead of the arm holding the knife. I hadn't previously given much thought to the stopping power of different injured limbs."
"Going after the weapon arm was a good tactic as well, just remember that most people can use both arms with their weapons.
Also, thank you for targeting the individual with the gun from range first this time. Still, none of that is why I called you in. Can you tell me why it is that you revealed yourself to two individuals last night?"
"Technically they figured it out themselves. Friends of the family that thought I looked familiar on video, then saw me in person on the boardwalk at some point and felt they were sure. Then last night they confirmed their suspicions with one of Lustrum's cape detector rings while over for dinner."
Director Piggot stiffened in her chair. "Where did they get one of those?"
"My mother, so I am told. She swiped a box full when she left the movement and paid her college loans off by selling most of them to the PRT."
Director Piggot relaxed with a frustrated look on her face. "Ah. So that lead is a dead end. We still don't know who made them, you see, and new ones still show up every so often. Still, thank you for getting the two of them to sign NDAs, even if you weren't required to."
"It was recommended, they didn't have a problem with it. Wish I knew how the paperwork box came and went, though."
"Should you ever figure it out and don't find it classified above my level I would love to know as well. Still, that is everything I had to talk to you about today."
Taylor took the dismissal as intended and left the office. Missy and Dean had left the building before she even made it up to the office,
and she didn't want to try and catch up with them. So she collected her weapons and headed down to the junkyard. Maybe they had some new statues that she could pretend were PHO posters or some of the more annoying gossipers at school?
Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
Chapter 23 Taylor made her way into the PRT building after lunch on Saturday,
intending to tag along on the afternoon patrol as a replacement for having missed the patrol the night before. She was a bit confused when she made it in and noticed that only Carlos was around, but got changed anyway. Giving it some thought, the patrols were afternoon and early evening today, so perhaps the others just hadn't arrived yet.
Having costumed up Taylor grabbed some of the available pizza and a soda and sat down on one of the stools in the kitchen area. She almost toppled over backwards when she forgot to take into account the weight of the weapons on her back, including the maul, but quickly corrected.
She decided to check who was doing what today while she ate and found that the afternoon patrol had Carlos on console with Missy and Dean patrolling. Dean would then take over the console while Carlos and Chris headed out for the evening patrol. Which is probably why Taylor had been pointed at the afternoon patrol, Chris wanted more flight testing for his hoverboard.
Taylor was distracted from that train of thought by Assault entering the Wards area. She had known he was approaching, but hadn't really thought he was coming in.
"Maul!" Assault said, literally bouncing over. "Just the unannounced Ward I wanted to see. I just told Aegis, I'm pulling rank, come on!"
And then he proceeded to lightly try and drag Taylor with him, only to fail to budge her. "What the hell? How much do you weigh?"
"Not that much," Taylor said, then finished off her soda. "Then again,
I do have a good amount of weight strapped to me in the form of weapons."
"Huh." Assault then dramatically cracked his knuckles, grabbed Taylor, and dragged her along. "Come along, we have a patrol to get to!"
Taylor wasn't left with many options and went along for the ride.
They stopped when they had reached the secure parking area, the long way.
"Why didn't we just pop over through the Wards lot?" Taylor asked once she was put down. "The staircase was right there."
"The what?"
"Staircase to the Wards lot, or the lot itself?"
"I didn't know there was a staircase to the Wards lot, I'll have to look into that. Right, well, today you are unofficially joining Battery and I on a joint Protectorate and PRT patrol. Battery is deploying from the ferry station and we are deploying from here."
Taylor was then subjected to a safety lesson for riding in the PRT transport, a basic rundown for how to react to situations the PRT officers expected might come up, and was even given some radio protocol warnings based on previous issues with Wards.
She countered the latter with a direct reference from the console class that contradicted one of their statements, resulting in someone actually checking the manual. Taylor was proven correct and they decided to shut up before they got something else wrong, though they did remember to have the console shift Taylor to the Protectorate channel instead of the Wards channel for the time being.
Finally the two PRT vans departed. One contained only Taylor,
Assault, and a driver while the other carried a group of PRT officers.
"Why are we alone in this van?" Taylor asked. "For that matter, why did they make sure the other van had space for our driver?"
"In the event of a cape fight this van is likely to be sacrificed," their driver answered. "Probably by Assault tearing it to pieces on his way out."
"They only let me ride in the vans they want to get rid of," Assault said, shrugging. "I have no problem with that."
"Why do they want to get rid of this one?" Taylor asked, confused. It seemed like it was in good condition.
The driver chuckled. "In this case? The air conditioning doesn't work,
the lock on the back door is a horror to get to work right in the rain,
and the adjustment unit for the passenger seat up here hasn't worked since Armsmaster sat in it a couple months ago."
"So, right," Assault said, slapping his legs. "One reason I grabbed you today was I wanted to have a little chat."
"What kind of chat?" Taylor asked.
"I was hoping you could tell me why I suddenly started leaving ice trails behind me in fights."
Taylor blinked at that, and thought back on things. "Oh, did your snark figure out how to use the kinetic energy in molecules?"
"What kinetic energy in molecules?"
"Er, when you showed up while I was in the hospital I was working on an assignment for my science class. The material mentioned that temperature is basically the kinetic energy of the molecules bouncing around against each other, though that might have been a simplification. I mentioned it to your snark?"
"Huh." Assault leaned back, stroking his chin. "That would explain why all of a sudden I don't mind warmer temperatures, even if it made the sauna awkward. Don't suppose you have any other thoughts on things that are just kinetic energy in some way?"
"Electricity is moving electrons? But only active electricity, batteries probably don't count unless they are powering something. And sound is just moving gas or, I suppose, liquid?"
"Huh. Again. I never really considered any of that, and I suspect electrons moving around won't be enough to bother with. I already know that I can't get much out of the air, though maybe boosting my yells? Hmmm. I guess the important bit is that I need to get to practicing conscious control over draining temperature to power up,
if only so I don't do it when it would be a bad thing. Thanks, though."
[Gratitude]
"You're welcome," Taylor said. You're welcome, too. "So, where are we patrolling and what else should I expect to learn on this trip?"
"We're patrolling the docks, and mostly the goal is to learn how capes interact with the PRT when both are operating in the same area. Most of that is going to be boring explanations from me and James here." Assault gestured at the driver. "Unless, of course, we run into action, in which case you get a live-fire demonstration.
Afterwards I hope to introduce you to Battery to find out what her snark is like."
"Oh."
Two hours later Taylor was bored out of her mind. She had run some searches on her phones to see if she could get more details on a couple of things being explained to her and had found that most of what she was being told was direct out of a manual. One that she decided to read ahead in so they would hopefully allow her to skip the verbal explanation when she could quote things at them before they brought them up.
That hadn't worked, but they had finally run out of material a couple minutes ago.
Taylor had mentally noted but not said anything about the group of four capes on the second floor of one of the supposedly abandoned warehouses. Unless she was tasked with hunting down unknown capes she wasn't supposed to volunteer things like that, after all.
She had also ignored the two capes in the back of a limo they passed.
"So now that all the explanations are out of the way," Taylor asked.
"What do we do?"
"Sit here bored hoping something comes up?" Assault offered. "I think I will try napping."
Taylor just groaned and tried to decide between something productive like looking through documentation or something that would keep her mind occupied like Tetris.
In the end Taylor had gone with trying to read documentation on her Maul phone while playing Tetris on her personal phone and had done fairly well at both. She didn't come close to her high score in Tetris, granted, but that wasn't the point. She had found a number of interesting things in the documentation, though, and planned on taking advantage of some of it.
One thing she had looked for specifically was rules on guns, after the lesson on what to do when PRT officers pulled their sidearms. She had discovered that the PRT offered firearm safety classes and would issue sidearms to anyone who passed them, regardless of age. The hardest part would be getting her father to sign off on some of the paperwork. She had requested printed copies of the appropriate forms, figuring that it was better to try and fail than to not try at all.
Now, though, they were approaching the end of the incredibly boring three hour patrol. Said patrol was apparently going to end at the boardwalk and not at the PRT building, though Taylor was unsure as to why that was.
"Come on," Assault said, having woken up from his nap a few minutes prior. "We have one last stop before we are done for the day."
"Any chance you are willing to tell me what that stop is?" Taylor asked. She was suspecting not.
"Nope, but we are meeting up with Battery."
Assault led Taylor down the boardwalk towards where Taylor felt another cape was likely waiting, that cape probably being Battery.
This assumption was proven correct as they arrived at a stand selling fried dough.
"Battery!" Assault yelled, much louder than necessary.
"Assault," Battery responded, then took a look at Taylor. "And Maul,
was it?"
"Er, yea," Taylor said. "Hello."
Hello there.
[Annoyance. Hunger]
"So," Assault said, slapping Taylor on the back. Which meant he slapped her wok, which made a bit of a gong-like sound. Taylor didn't think it normally did that and wondered if Assault had done something with his power? "One benefit we have is that none of the three of us cover our mouths with a mask. Thus we are able to eat in costume! Hence meeting for fried dough."
Why are most of you hungry snarks rude? That isn't a reason to be rude.
[Annoyance]
"Perhaps you should have checked if Maul here was on a diet or something first?" Battery said, gesturing at Taylor. "After all, she is a
teenage girl."
"Pfft," Taylor said, giggling a little. "If I were that concerned about what I ate I wouldn't have tackled the challenger. Plus a milkshake."
Well maybe if you told someone how to feed you or something you would be better off. I just know that some snarks keep complaining.
What am I supposed to do about it?
[Acquiescence]
"Seriously? You ate a challenger?" Battery said, staring at Taylor.
"How did you pull that off?"
"I was hungry. It was there," Taylor answered with a little grin.
"Granted, I helped unstick some dumpsters first, and all of this was after riding a wrecking ball."
You don't know how to feed because figuring that out wasn't your job? Sorry, I haven't run into any snarks I think could help you. Are you at least happy with your human?
[Boredom]
"Well, I vote we order some fried dough," Assault said once it was obvious that Battery was stunned silent. He proceeded to push Taylor and Battery into the line at the stand.
Huh, she doesn't experiment with you, but you know that is because you don't give her anything to experiment with so that you can conserve your reserves. I can understand that.
[Apathy]
Several customers looked like they were going to get out of line to let the three order faster, but all three of them signaled that they were fine waiting. When it was their turn each of them placed their order,
with Assault paying for the lot. They then made their way to a nearby table and sat down to eat.
"So how is Battery's snark?" Assault asked, causing Battery to look at him, then Taylor.
"Hungry and bored," Taylor answered before taking a sip of her drink.
"But it doesn't know how to be fed and is responsible for being bored so there isn't much to do about either right now."
"I have no idea how to take that," Battery admitted. "What is a snark?"
"Your power, kinda," Taylor answered, shrugging. "Or the thing granting you your power, to be more specific, but I think most people don't make a distinction between the two."
"Oh."
"So, don't suppose either of you know why a patrol was done while Panacea is doing an out of town weekend? I mean, it was pretty much guaranteed to be a boring-fest."
"Because we like to keep people on their toes?" Assault offered. "I
didn't plan it, and we technically aren't supposed to respect non-
Endbringer truces unless they were agreed to by the PRT and
Protectorate in writing. Paying lip service to it with the Wards via 'noticing a pattern in villain behavior' is allowed though."
"Huh. Ok." Taylor looked down at her empty plate. "So, anything else before we go our separate ways?"
"Well, I wouldn't object to you helping convince Battery here to participate in a cape swimsuit calendar."
Battery growled as she glared at Assault. "If hitting you worked I would slap you right now."
Assault grinned, then flipped back out of his chair with a loud "YEOW!"
Battery looked over at Taylor, who was blowing over her fist. She then turned back towards Assault, then looked at Taylor again. "Ok, if you just did what I think you just did then I think I like you."
"If you think I just punched him out of his seat," Taylor said, grinning.
"Well, you would be right. He foolishly had me confirm that my power doesn't count as kinetic to his snark while I was in the hospital."
"I now regret that decision," Assault said as he stood up, rubbing his chest where Taylor had punched him. "I also now regret introducing the two of you."
"Just be glad I only used my fist."
"So, Maul," Battery said, standing up and gesturing for Taylor to follow her. "Given that I think you are my new best friend, have you heard of the access keys class?"
"I've been trolling half of the Wards with it since I joined up," Taylor admitted, grinning as she got up and followed, dropping her trash in a can on the way by. "Though I won't complain if you have found anything else interesting I might want to look up?"
Taylor spent a good hour with Battery discussing things.
Unfortunately Battery hadn't actually come across anything interesting that Taylor was unaware of for Wards, though Taylor was able to point Battery at the 'request a clearance upgrade' form.
Eventually they had to part ways, and Taylor made her way back to the PRT building.
On the way she was surprised to get a notification that she was required to attend an 'emergency meeting' tomorrow. She had no idea what that was about as there were no details beyond the fact it had been called by Director Piggot.
Hearing Assault make a request to the console did remind her that she was on the Protectorate channel, though. She waited for the
console to respond to Assault before poking her own transmit button.
"Maul to Console, requesting switch back to Wards channel."
"Console to Maul, request acknowledged," came back after another message had gone out to Assault. "Switching you back now."
Taylor got the beep pattern that signified she had been channel-
switched, but not much was going on. She checked the time and
found that Carlos and Chris should be out patrolling at this point, but given that it was likely going to be a quiet weekend the silence wasn't a surprise. Still, since she wasn't actually on patrol at this point she figured she might as well sign out of the radio app.
Making her way back into the PRT building via the front door was easy enough. She noted that Missy was around in addition to Dean.
Which could be perfect for some of what she found, now that she thought about it. So she headed down to hopefully talk to Missy while Dean was still in the console's silence field.
She found Missy watching what appeared to be a live feed from Chris, if Carlos in the shot was any indication. "Hello Missy. Why are you watching them fly around?"
"Hi Taylor," Missy replied, turning around to look at Taylor. "Chris is testing a new broadcast unit he added to his armor. Things were a little more interesting when they were pulling some flying stunts for the tourists."
"Ahh." Taylor slipped her jacket off and set it next to the couch.
"Budge over. Huh, is that your new utility belt?"
"Yep. I already expanded everything I currently plan to. So, anything interesting happen?"
"I got to join a joint Protectorate and PRT patrol so that Assault could ask me questions followed by two hours of all but quoting the manual on how capes and PRT officers are supposed to work together."
Missy flinched at that. "Yea, that sounds like a horrible experience. I at least got it in three chunks, not all at once."
"Yea, well. I met Battery afterwards and we chatted for a bit. She likes the fact I can hit Assault with my power and he won't just absorb the impact."
"That sounds incredibly useful, so you are probably her new best friend. Anything else?"
"Well, I think we have a few more classes to sign up for. Not sure when I will get them in, though, given the meeting alert I got."
"I got one of those too, any idea what is going on?"
"Nope. Maybe we will get to attend the classes together after all. So,
did you know that anyone with SL4 or higher clearance that takes the correct classes can grab things they took the classes for from the armory?"
"I was unaware of that. How did you figure that out?"
"I looked up gun rules, requested the authorization forms, then decided to read up on the armory rules the gun rules page linked to.
At any rate, you need three classes to get access to the armory, and it turns out that in Brockton Bay there are four classes available to Wards in general."
"Only four?"
"Yea, we don't keep tinkertech weapons available in the armory so the classes related to them aren't an option. That leaves handguns,
containment foam grenades, tasers, and knives. I thought batons would be included, but apparently they can just be requested."
"We can get trained on guns?"
"Yep. And if we pass the course we can get issued PRT sidearms.
We would need to spend a couple hours a month in the firing range
and probably would need to justify actually using the guns should we ever do so outside of the firing range, but we can get them. The armory access would then give us access to ammunition for them."
"Huh."
"And I figure we can at least grab the containment foam grenade training, given that we should be able to easily carry a couple in our utility belts. I was thinking about getting both the taser and knife training just because options are always good."
"Knowing how to use my boot knife better than 'pointy end in the bad guy' would be nice," Missy conceded. "So should we both sign up for all of the classes now?"
"We need to get a parent to sign off on the firearms class," Taylor admitted. Missy slumped at that. "As I said, I requested the forms,
but they won't be available until Tuesday. Beyond that, though? I figure we go for it."
The two of them signed up for the three classes they could take and mused a bit more on what the emergency meeting might be about.
Eventually they decided that they were done for the day and went home before Carlos and Chris had made it back from their patrol.
Sunday morning Taylor and Missy met in the Wards area after both had costumed up. After a few minutes they realized that it seemed as though none of the other Wards had been called for today's meeting, which confused them.
"Shouldn't Carlos at least be involved in this meeting?" Taylor asked.
"I mean, I think every Protectorate cape in town is in the building right now, why would the two of us be included out of the Wards, but the rest skipped?"
"I have no idea," Missy said, shrugging. "But barring exceptional circumstances we are supposed to attend any meeting we are
summoned for. Then again, we are a bit early. Maybe he is going to show up at the last minute?"
"Want to go up now?"
"Why not. Maybe donuts are available."
Taylor and Missy made their way to the secure conference room,
which had been locked to meeting participants only. Each of them was able to open the door and head in, finding that they were the only ones there so far.
And, as hoped, there were donuts.
Taylor and Missy looked up as Director Piggot entered the conference room, only for her to freeze at the sight of them.
"Maul, Vista," Director Piggot said. "Why are you here, and how did you get in?"
"We got notice of an emergency meeting today?" Missy offered as Taylor pulled out her Maul phone to show the Director.
Director Piggot walked over and looked at Taylor's phone, finding that it did indeed state that she had been summoned. She then got an annoyed look on her face. "Damnit, I summoned all parahumans in town with SL4 or better, and I know you have SL9." She then turned to Missy. "But that doesn't explain you, Aegis is the only Ward with better than SL2?"
"I filled out the clearance upgrade per year served form to top out at SL4," Missy answered, showing her own summons. "Should be nice entering the Protectorate above the minimum SL3 they get."
"The minimum..." Director Piggot mumbled, then facepalmed.
"Damnit, Triumph."
Taylor and Missy just looked at each other, not sure what that was supposed to mean.
"Well," Director Piggot said, going over to where the donuts, coffee,
tea, and juice were. "You two might as well stay, half the reason we are meeting is to come up with a solution to a problem Maul alerted us to in the first place. Vista, you know how to keep secrets well enough and Maul, well, you have shown yourself to think outside of the box."
"There's a box?" Taylor said, grinning. Missy snickered. "What box?"
"Yes, well, I guess I need to go back to picking individuals for these meetings," Director Piggot continued. "Given that I intended for all Protectorate members and got most of the Protectorate and two Wards."
"I thought the help for that function indicated that you could expand the parahumans group to choose Protectorate, Wards, or both?"
Taylor offered. She wasn't permitted to call emergency meetings, but assumed that having the 'emergency, required to attend' checkbox available didn't invalidate the rest of the help. "Instead of relying on security level, anyway."
Director Piggot stared at Taylor, then made her way to the secure terminal at the end of the table. After logging in she poked around a little and swore under her breath. Taylor heard her just fine, though.
"Yes, there is indeed that option. Thank you for pointing it out, I somehow missed it."
Over the next few minutes most of the protectorate arrived. Taylor discreetly introduced herself to Dauntless's and Velocity's snarks when they came in, but carefully avoided going any further. Shortly after that Assault and Battery arrived, with Battery plopping herself down next to Taylor with a grin at Assault. Assault pouted and sat down next to Missy instead.
Armsmaster and Miss Militia came in last, with Armsmaster sitting in a heavily reinforced chair that everyone else had left for him.
"It looks like everyone is here," Director Piggot said after everyone had settled. "Given that I screwed up when scheduling the meeting and accidentally excluded Triumph. The same mistake included Maul and Vista, but I figure they can contribute as well as anyone else.
Thank you Maul, for pointing out the option I should have used when scheduling the meeting."
"You're welcome," Taylor said. She figured that this was not the time for joking.
"Right. We are here because Maul accidentally revealed a parahuman infiltrator during her power testing. Maul, do you have any idea what I am referring to?"
"I assume it was the pre-cog guy as I can't see an infiltrator having been going up and down in an elevator and Miss Militia and Dauntless are both here."
"How did you know Dauntless was one of the parahumans there when you were being tested?"
"I recognize his snark, now that I have seen him in person I can put a name to it."
Everyone else in the room other than Missy and Assault stiffened a little at that. Apparently that potential little gotcha with her powers hadn't actually sunk in for most of them. Don't they read things?
Then again, Taylor hadn't checked to see what had been classified on her own record. Hmmm.
"I see," Director Piggot finally said, leaning back in her chair. "Well,
yes. The 'pre-cog' guy as you refer to him is one Thomas Calvert,
and as far as we can tell he is also the supervillain known as 'Coil'.
While we could apprehend him at pretty much any time we have the problem of his base. Which we believe to be rigged to explode, and
is situated under the financial district. We need a way to ensure it doesn't explode before we move on him."
"Can't Armsmaster just tinker up an anti-bomb device?" Assault asked, unusually serious. Apparently he didn't like the situation.
"I have been looking into the problem since we were informed about the issue," Armsmaster said. "But barring attempting to induce a tinker fugue or finding a friendly explosives-expert tinker I do not foresee a tinkertech solution being possible at this time. We just don't have, and can't get, enough information about the inside of the base."
"What thinker support we were able to get also indicates that taking over the computer systems in the base from the outside will fail,
barring exceptional circumstances," Director Piggot continued.
"Taking the base by force could give them time to arm the self destruct. Taking Calvert into custody is likely to cause something to trip as well. Half the danger may be in the data stored in the base,
meaning we have to disconnect the data feeds we do know about.
But that is likely to cause the thing to decide to detonate due to failsafes."
"Doesn't sound like that failure would be very safe," Missy mumbled.
Assault chuckled, obviously having heard her.
"What we need is a way to disable the entire base at once," Miss Militia supplied. "The problem is, there aren't any good ways to do that. And we have been denied external assistance beyond basic thinker support due to the likely impending Endbringer attack."
Everyone just sat there silent for a minute, pondering the problem.
"Umm," Taylor finally spoke up. "What is the problem with inducing a tinker fugue?"
"There are certain drugs that can be used to attempt to induce one,"
Armsmaster supplied. "But they are hazardous and can cause long-
term issues with the tinker beyond being addictive. Their success rate is about ten percent, and their fatality rate is about twenty."
"Huh." Taylor sat there for a moment, and decided that now was as good a time as ever for some things. "I haven't exactly been fully forthcoming about how I got caught in a tinker fugue, have I?"
"No, you haven't," Director Piggot said, leaning forward a little. "And I haven't found any record of it that wasn't entered by myself in the PRT systems."
"Off the books projects tend to not leave easily found paper trails,"
Taylor retorted, and Director Piggot grimaced. "At any rate, the participants had snarks that, er, meshed well and were focused on me at the time. In an attempt to get a better idea of what was going on I connected all the present snarks into a single channel, a conference call if you will. The resulting exchange of information between the snarks triggered a fugue state in the group of us."
Everyone else in the room stared at Taylor, causing her to fidget.
"Are you saying that you can intentionally trigger multi-tinker fugues?" Director Piggot finally asked. "So long as you have suitable tinkers available?"
"As far as I know, yes?" Taylor answered. "It has only happened the one time so far, and I have avoided talking to multiple snarks in a single channel since just to be safe."
"Are you allowed to tell us which parahumans were involved in your fugue?" Miss Militia asked.
"No, I am only allowed to reveal my own part on my own," Taylor said, shrugging. "I am not sure I am even allowed to tell you how many other parahumans were involved beyond 'multiple', but if you really want I can contact those that might be willing to admit they were involved?"
"That won't be needed," Director Piggot responded. "Unless you feel any of them are both available and possibly useful in the current situation?" Taylor shook her head negative at that.
"We can probably use this situation as a proof of concept,"
Armsmaster said after everyone digested that. "We know we won't get assistance right now, but if Kid Win and myself were to work with Maul that could form the basis of future sessions with more tinkers."
"Well, that is one option," Battery said. "But we shouldn't assume it is our only one. Anyone else have any ideas?"
They spent several hours running through a pile of other ideas,
issues, options, and fleshing out details. They came up with nothing better than the fugue idea, so planned for running with it the following day after ensuring Chris was available to make the attempt.
Armsmaster would prepare a lab for them to work in on the Rig filled with everything he thought they might need, and Taylor and Chris would costume up and take the ferry over early in the morning.
Taylor was instructed to head home and rest for the rest of the day as tinker fugues could be stressful on everyone involved.
Chapter 24 Early Monday morning Taylor was picked up by a PRT van. They also picked up Chris, then made their way to the PRT building.
Taylor and Chris costumed up, though Taylor left her weapons, jump harness, and visor behind and put on a simple domino mask. Once the two were costumed the PRT van brought them to the ferry terminal to head over to the Rig.
The ride across to the Rig was made in silence. They were met by Miss Militia at the Rig side, who beckoned them to follow her. She led them through the hallways, which looked remarkably like the PRT building's, and to a large work area. Armsmaster was already there, and there were a number of people in an observation area that appeared to be set up with a pile of recording equipment.
Before Miss Militia left them, however, Taylor transferred her watch to her utility belt before removing the belt and holding it out to Miss Militia. "Can you hold onto this for me?"
"I can, but am wondering why you want me to," Miss Militia answered, taking the utility belt.
"I am not in the mood to come out of a fugue and realize that we cannibalized my phones for parts, given that the last one I was involved with had my earpiece cannibalized. We were incredibly lucky, I think, that none of us did the same to our phones then."
"Ahh, I can see that. Good thinking."
"Good morning Kid Win, Maul," Armsmaster said, drawing Taylor's attention. "Because it can be important to know these things I would like to ensure you both have a general idea of where everything is in here. The emergency procedures are generally going to be handled by our observers as tinkers in a fugue can be nearly impossible to snap out of it until they are finished."
This led to a quick tour, including a general breakdown of what each pile of tech contained. Most of it was otherwise damaged junk for them to potentially pull things from, but there were several cabinets of brand new components as well.
"Finally," Armsmaster said, gesturing to the observation area.
"Behind the reinforced glass and force field is the observation team.
In addition, Dragon will be keeping an eye on the video feeds remotely, in case seeing us work allows for any later insight into the process. Are there any questions?"
Taylor looked around the room and realized that there were two things that she felt were missing. Maybe three. "I don't see any source of food or water, and you made no mention of restrooms?"
Armsmaster looked like he was about to answer before he scowled.
A snickering suddenly came over the intercom from the observation room as a large door opened in the opposite wall. Taylor didn't recognize the voice. "Miss Militia realized that Armsmaster would likely forget about that and had a full supply of food and drink prepared. The restrooms are in the back of the 'kitchen'."
Taylor took a quick look in the revealed room and found that there were plenty of bottles of water, juice, soda, and energy drinks in addition to the coffee maker. Boxes of various eat on the go snack bars, varieties of chips, pre-made sandwiches, and other items were also included. They even had a stack of pizzas in a keep-warm oven.
And three restrooms were marked in the back.
"Thank you Miss Militia," Armsmaster said, sounding relieved. "I do tend to forget that other tinkers don't use the efficient methods I do."
"That is quite alright," Miss Militia replied over the intercom. "We know and were prepared."
"Now then, Maul," Armsmaster said, turning to Taylor. "How do we proceed with inducing a fugue?"
"I think you and Kid Win need to focus on the problem at hand,"
Taylor answered. "That is, safely disabling the explosives and other threats in an underground bunker. I then connect to your snarks so they can communicate through me."
"I see," Armsmaster said, gesturing to Kid Win to come over to the table in the middle of the room. "Then let's begin."
Taylor poked at both of their snarks in a shared channel while they were getting settled to begin.
Hello!
[Affirmation] {Affirmation}
{Shock}
[Outrage]
Taylor blinked, then groaned. Armsmaster and Kid Win didn't notice.
What? Why are you fighting already? Taylor gave that a very quick thought. Modular first!
{Acquiescence}
[Exposition]
{Disagreement}
[Data]
{Data}
ENOUGH!
Taylor started swearing under her breath and stomped her way into the kitchen area. The observers were concerned, especially when she came back with a beer, opened and half-consumed. One of
them noted that a bottle of pain medication had been left open as well.
"Why is there beer in there?" Dragon asked Miss Militia.
"I ordered a standard tinker fugue food supply," Miss Militia answered. "I was unaware that beer was included, otherwise I would have probably ordered the standard Wards tinker fugue food supply instead."
Taylor dropped down into a chair, Armsmaster and Kid Win taking a curious look at her before resuming their own attempts at coming up with a plan.
So, Modular prefers things to be reusable even if that adds inefficiency. And Efficiency dislikes making things multi-purpose because that makes them inefficient for the reason they are being built.
[Agreement] {Agreement}
Taylor took another swig of beer. This was only her third time having any, ever, and her father would probably be horrified at that. But she felt there was no better time for one.
Ok then you hypocrites. Modular, do you realize that specialized modules are an efficient way to make things, and that those modules aren't universally able to be swapped out with others?
[Horror] {Smug}
And Efficiency, do you realize that standardized modules that can replace each other improves maintenance and repair efficiency as you just need to swap out the component for an identical replacement?
{Horror} [Smug]
So given that you each do things like the other in part, can you work together to solve the problem we have with who knows what damaging data and a pile of explosives under civilians?
[Indecision]
{Query}
[Negation. Query]
{Negation}
Taylor groaned and finished off the beer as the two snarks bounced ideas neither could agree on back and forth. This was getting nowhere fast. Neither snark could even agree on a starting point.
Also, she wasn't feeling the initial effects of the beer she recalled having when Kurt last slipped her one. Did Amy and Riley make it harder or impossible for her to get drunk? The bastards.
Out of frustration she came up with what she felt was the most ridiculous and complicated method of solving this problem that might make the two snarks happy and threw it at them.
Why not just make a pile of nanomachines that hunt down the stuff we need to take apart and temporarily assemble themselves into the specialized machines needed to safely do so?
{Query}
[Determination]
{Excitement. Data}
[Intrigue. Data]
[Integration] {Integration} Integration
Taylor idly noted that this felt familiar as she lost herself in the data and collaboration.
Dragon and Miss Militia had both been astounded at the sudden change in the three parahumans as they went silent and just started working in perfect synchronization. The other observers were similarly astounded, but were spending too much time taking notes to chat.
"This is not a normal tinker fugue," Dragon finally said to the others in the observation room. "It isn't even a normal multi-tinker fugue, if the three recorded instances I have access to are any indication.
They are working too calmly and seamlessly for that. This is more like one tinker somehow working with three bodies in a single fugue,
without the sheer drive to complete things that a normal fugue induces. Possibly because the drive is split across multiple bodies?"
"I can see that," Miss Militia answered. "Maul is mainly functioning as an extra set of hands, holding or fetching items, but occasionally removing parts from things for the other two or doing final assembly of produced components. Kid Win and Armsmaster seamlessly hand things between each other as one or the other needs to work on them, sometimes via Maul. But what I can't figure out is what they are building?"
"I have no idea, but the process is fascinating."
Taylor woke up on the ferry with a pounding headache, her utility belt sitting next to her. The sun was already down, and her phones indicated it was approaching nine o'clock. Chris was asleep in the seat across from her, a domino mask on his face and what was likely the remains of his power armor sitting next to him.
She couldn't remember much about what had happened, but pulling her phones out of the utility belt allowed her to see that she had apparently written a five hundred page manual on her Maul phone and emailed it to Armsmaster, Chris, Dragon, and Miss Militia. How had she done that when she couldn't see the phone's screen?
Looking over the manual it appeared to have about fifty pages
describing how to use the primary controller to direct the nanobots to render an area safe and data-isolated? What nanobots? The rest appeared to be dedicated to some rather confusing looking documentation on the repair and replacement procedures and methodology for both the controller and the nanobots themselves.
"Huh, where am I?" Chris mumbled as he woke up.
"I think we are on the ferry heading back to the PRT building," Taylor answered. "Also, I think we had a successful fugue."
"Oh. Cool, I guess?"
"You also likely need to re-build your power armor, if those are the remains of it?"
Chris looked at the pile of parts, blinked a couple of times, and then shrugged. "Nah, that was my old non-modular set. Wasn't going to risk the new armor to the fugue."
"Oh, ok. I wonder if Armsmaster did something similar?"
Chris started poking through the remaining pieces of the armor he had worn today, eventually pulling out what looked like his own phone. "Huh, we documented stuff? How did we document anything without tearing apart the device we documented stuff on?"
"I apparently typed out a manual with my brain at some point." Taylor checked her phones for an indication of when that might have started. "Huh, looks like I asked Miss Militia to prop one of my phones up against the observation window at some point around noon? At any rate, despite having written it I don't think I understand most of it now. And since the phone was on the other side of the observation window we couldn't pull it apart."
"Huh, kind of clever."
The two of them talked a bit more about how clueless they were over various things as they transferred to a PRT van and into the PRT building. From there they changed back into civilian attire and were brought home in two different vehicles.
Once Taylor was home she hugged her father, told him things apparently went well, and got ready for bed.
Tuesday morning Taylor woke to find emails waiting for her. The first one to get her attention informed her that her ten thousand dollar credit for the PRT store had cleared. It didn't explain how that credit had been obtained, but ten thousand dollars? She moved on in hopes of an explanation.
The next email detailed a small parahuman information bounty payout for the first recording of a new parahuman power interaction.
Thinkers had apparently found it to be incredibly useful in mapping out how powers interacted with one another, filling in some holes in theories. Huh, just from watching the video?
After that was an email detailing the 'recorded tinkertech creation with new techniques' bounty, which was a little larger. It was also somewhat self explanatory and indicated that any patents for the new techniques may be split between the participants.
Following that was a description of the largest payout, the documented tinkertech bounty. Apparently Dragon had found the manual Taylor had written to be incredibly useful and was already looking at building an entire duplicate system based on the information. Several patents resulting from that had been submitted already, again in the names of the participants.
The last email was from Miss Militia, and described what they had seen in general terms as well as indicating that the two thousand dollars maximum 'per bonus pay incident' had been deposited into her debit card account, the maximum 'per bonus pay incident' ten thousand dollars PRT store credit had been applied, and the
remaining twelve thousand and some change had been deposited into her trust fund.
Taylor stopped and blinked, then went back and double checked.
Holy shit, nearly twenty five thousand dollars total? And that was just her share?
She would have continued to go into shock at that, but her alarm went off. Why was her alarm set? Arcadia had the entire Presidents Day week off. Which was the only reason they had attempted the tinker fugue thing yesterday.
Taylor decided she might as well get ready for the day anyway, so she turned her alarm off and got out of bed.
Danny had come downstairs, chatted a little over breakfast, and left for work. He didn't have the luxury of taking the rest of the week off,
after all. Taylor wasn't entirely sure what she was going to do today,
given that her Maul calendar had an alert saying she was required to take two days off from a Wards point of view. She suspected Chris had a similar item on his calendar. She did want to head into the PRT to pick up the firearm training forms, though, so that meant going out at some point.
Taylor deliberated for a bit and decided to send a text off to see if Amy wanted to hang out. About ten minutes later she got a positive response with a recommendation that they meet by the gym at the PRT building. Oh, right, Amy had been trying to exercise more,
hadn't she? Taylor collected some gym-friendly clothing and a swimsuit into a bag, ensuring she had a paper-keeper plastic case to throw the firearms class paperwork in as well. She would also take the bus, since her moped wouldn't help Amy move around anyway.
On the way to the gym Taylor wondered how Calvert, or Coil, or whatever they were calling him was going to be handled. After all,
they now apparently had a device capable of dealing with his base.
Then again, it wasn't like the Wards would be expected to help with
that at all, and if they wanted to move quickly things were probably going down in the next couple of days.
"Hi Taylor," Amy said as Taylor walked up to the gym door. "How was the ride over?"
"The ride was fine," Taylor answered, showing her digital membership card as they entered. "How was your weekend?"
"Busy, as usual. I actually ended up back at Medhall yesterday to look at a couple of people that hadn't been available when I was there before. Though when Carol found out she put me on a four day ban from visiting the hospital unless they call me in."
The two of them made their way to the 'employees only' door and headed down into the gym. It looked like it was once again empty,
making Taylor wonder if anyone else ever used it.
"Does anyone else ever come down here?" Amy asked, voicing Taylor's own question. "You and Missy are the only two I have seen in here other than me."
"I have no idea," Taylor replied, shrugging. "Never seen anyone else in here either. Though Dean might pop down here every so often now too."
"So why don't you grab a domino mask when you are in here?" Amy asked, gesturing to the cubby with a pile of them. "I know Missy had one on when I ran into her."
"I figure if people see me in here they will assume that I can get in because of my uncle."
"That makes sense." Amy then finally gave into her desire to look at Taylor's mods. A quick poke of Taylor's exposed skin and Amy blinked a couple of times. "What in the world were you doing? It
looks like you tried to get drunk and overdose on sugar and caffeine recently!"
"Oh, right, I was meaning to ask if alcohol has less of an effect on me."
"You are pretty much immune. Now what were you doing?"
"You bastards, I can't get drunk? I should file a complaint."
"Yes yes, you are immune. Which means no hangovers either. What were you doing?"
"Huh, no getting drunk means never being hung over. Hmmm. Might be worth it. Maybe I should challenge Lung to a drinking contest someday." Taylor thought about it for a moment, then looked at Amy who seemed prepared to cause Taylor harm. "As for what, I am not allowed to give you details. But I can tell you that this time I wasn't the focus of the other participants."
"Damnit, I hate classified...did you say this time?" Amy stared at Taylor for a minute. "Please tell me that it was intentional this time?"
"It was, but it took more effort to make happen too."
Amy shook her head and led Taylor into the locker room so they could change into their workout clothing.
Taylor and Amy made their way into the Wards common area. Taylor already knew that Missy was there, but hadn't noticed anyone else.
Their main goal was Taylor checking her mail.
"Hello Taylor," Missy said from where she was eating a couple of donuts, looking oddly at Taylor. "I thought you were barred from Wards duty to recover from yesterday?"
"Hi Missy," Taylor replied. "And I just want to grab my mail before Amy and I head off to elsewhere." Taylor then put actions to words and headed to check her mailbox.
"Good morning Missy," Amy said. "How are you today?"
"I'm fine, if bored," Missy replied. "I didn't take into account yesterday's activities being likely to cancel my morning patrol with Chris. And I probably shouldn't have even said that much, damn."
"Don't worry too much," Amy said, looking around to ensure nobody unexpected was around. "Taylor said just enough to clue me in.
Taylor isn't allowed to say on her own, but I was involved in the last incident." Missy's eyes went wide. She obviously wasn't expecting that. "At least this time she intended to link snarks."
Missy just shook her head and went back to her donuts. She obviously didn't know what to say about that and was going with saying nothing instead.
"Looks like my extra wireless charging mats showed up," Taylor said as she came back over to them, one box and a manilla envelope in her hands. "Left one in my room just in case something happens to the one built into the closet. And paperwork!"
"Why are you happy about paperwork?" Amy asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I want to take a class but need parental-type permission. Speaking of which," Taylor flipped through the contents of the envelope and moved half the contents to the paper-keeper in her bag. The rest went back into the envelope to be handed to Missy. "Here's your copy. Good luck getting it signed."
"Thanks," Missy said, taking the envelope. "I have a cunning plan. I'll tell you about it if it works."
"Good luck," Taylor said, waving Amy towards the door. "We should get going before someone shows up to yell at me."
"Have a nice day Missy," Amy said, waving and following Taylor out.
"Just so you know, Missy is the only Ward other than Chris that has any clue what went on yesterday."
Amy looked confused. "How did that happen, anyway?"
Taylor grinned. "Director Piggot called a meeting in the wrong way,
and got Missy and me instead of Triumph. She knows how to call the next one correctly, but let Missy and I stick around. It turned out to be a good thing in the end, I think."
Amy just shook her head as they made their way back out through the gym. Once they were outside, however, Taylor realized that they had nothing planned in the first place. "So what do you want to do now?"
Amy thought about that for a minute before speaking. "As much as Missy was enjoying a late breakfast, I think we should grab some lunch."
"Works for me."
Amy had decided to treat Taylor to lunch at a nearby restaurant, then dragged Taylor back to the Dallon residence. More specifically, to the greenhouse in the backyard.
"I take it you have been playing with the plants?" Taylor said as she was led into the greenhouse.
"Yep, though I can't play today," Amy replied, grinning. Taylor had stopped just inside the door, seeing several pots on the center table.
Specifically, several pots of miniature roses, each with a different color of petal.
"Those are AWESOME!" Taylor said as she bounced over to the table, circling and cooing over the roses.
Definitely awesome! Good job.
[Gratitude]
"I haven't figured out how to get the rainbow effect in the roses yet,"
Amy admitted. "But I think I have figured out what chemicals to use for each color. The pack of exotic seeds your father provided has helped."
"Exotic seeds?"
"Yep, see?" Amy said, gesturing at the table in the back of the greenhouse. "Just playing with the different plants was awesome,
and some of them helped me figure out some of the details with the roses."
"Very cool," Taylor said as she poked around the more exotic plants.
"How much time have you had to play?"
"Generally an hour or two a night right now. But some of that I have used just to accelerate some of the growth of the seeds."
"Very nice."
Amy spent a little over an hour showing Taylor everything she had been playing with, Taylor getting additional information from Shaper at times during the process. Amy had apparently been taking inspiration from various plants for how to limit the growth of the roses, as well as making them hardier and easier to care for. She had already rendered them incapable of reproduction without her aid, right down to making it so that cuttings wouldn't be able to take root, so the PRT wouldn't have too much to complain about.
After they were done in the greenhouse they grabbed drinks in the house. On a whim Taylor pulled out one of her phones and checked
the PRT regulations on bio-tinkers. They took a few minutes to find,
but apparently despite the horror that was Ellisburg there weren't many direct issues. Provided Amy didn't create anything that was going to reproduce without her aid and avoided things that were intentionally harmful to humans she would be fine. Actually, that last bit was even more flexible.
"Did you know you can apply for a permit from the PRT to use your power to make things designed to hurt people?" Taylor asked.
"Specifically intended for defensive purposes."
"They actually have a permit for that?"
"Yea. So long as you are affiliated with the Protectorate and PRT and are in good standing. You do have to agree to periodic PRT evaluations of your creations. The only major issue is that the local PRT director has to approve of it."
"Well, so much for that idea. Maybe in a couple of years I will move to Boston or New York or something and try there."
"Oh well. So is there any reason you are the only one here whenever you bring me by?"
"Nobody else is here? The back door was unlocked when we came in."
"Unless you have non-parahuman visitors or family members I am unaware of we are the only people here."
Amy quickly pulled her phone out and fired a couple of text messages off. After a few minutes she started getting replies. The third one seemed to be the one that caused her to relax.
"So everything is ok?" Taylor asked.
"Apparently the back door isn't unlocked," Amy said, shaking her head. "Vicky broke the lock by accident this morning. Mark is out
looking for replacement hardware but is having issues finding the right stuff, and Vicky was scheduled to meet up with the afternoon Wards patrol. And, of course, Carol is at the office."
"Oh. Do you know how it is broken?"
"No, just that it is."
"Mind if I take a look? Might be able to get it to stay locked, at least."
"Probably a good idea, actually. Go for it."
Taylor made her way to the back door and took a closer look at the lock. It didn't take her long to realize she wasn't going to get far doing anything with it as the deadbolt was bent.
"Find anything? Amy asked a couple minutes later.
"The deadbolt is bent, so not much to do there," Taylor admitted.
"Even if I can bend it back that isn't a real solution. Though there is a less ideal temporary solution of using the doorknob lock. It appears to work?"
"We usually don't because Vicky has a tendency to not notice they are locked before she turns the doorknob, but I will admit it is the better option in this case."
"How did she bend the deadbolt anyway?"
"This house has been reinforced to the point where Squealer could probably crash one of her creations into the front door and cause more damage to her vehicle than to the house. The door would probably still pop open with a broken deadbolt, but would be otherwise undamaged. I still haven't gotten the story of why out of anyone, though. It was apparently done before I was even adopted,
and Aunt Sarah implied it had something to do with my biological father a couple years back. So Vicky probably didn't quite release the deadbolt and pulled on the door and the deadbolt failed first."
"Are you telling me that the deadbolts are the weakest links in the security on your doors?"
"Pretty much, yes."
"That is just weird."
Taylor beat her father home and set her new charging mat up on her desk before heading back downstairs to start on dinner. Her timing was off, with dinner pretty much ready for nearly an hour before her father came home.
They chatted about their days as they ate, and then Danny insisted on doing the cleanup. Taylor took advantage of that to grab the firearms class paperwork. She filled out everything she could, but still needed her father's signature. Once he was done he found her in the living room with the paperwork in front of her.
"So, what do you want me to agree to?" Danny asked. "Because I thought I had already agreed to the things that I needed to."
"I want to take the firearms class at the PRT," Taylor said, gesturing at the paperwork in front of her. "But because I am underage I need your permission?"
"Why do you want to take the class?"
"Because my snark and I really want to try playing with bullets, but there are very few options for doing so safely and legally?"
Danny stared at Taylor for a moment, then sighed and picked the paperwork up to read over it. It was fairly straightforward, permission for Taylor to take the firearms class and, if she passed, get the appropriate certificate. The class in question was limited to handguns and shotguns but covered basic firearm safety applicable to most firearms and would be held in the PRT building's practice range.
"So why do you want to play with bullets?" Danny finally asked.
"Well, specifically I think I will need to play with flat or round topped bullets," Taylor explained. "Given that more aerodynamic bullets may not count as blunt. But even figuring that out is half the potential fun.
I hadn't originally thought of shotguns until I read over the forms, but slugs would probably work with my power if handgun bullets won't. I don't think birdshot would work, or if it did that it would work well."
"You've given this some thought already, I see."
"Yep. I considered asking Miss Militia to help me play, to see if things would work, but not only do I think she would insist I take the firearms class anyway, I also think using power-generated ammo may not be a proper test. As a side bonus, knowing how to safely handle firearms would also help when I need to disarm gang members."
Danny groaned, but pulled a pen from his pocket and signed the form. As soon as he put the form down on the table he found himself being hugged by Taylor. "Thank you!" Taylor then gathered the paperwork up. She would head into the PRT to drop it off in the morning.
That evening Taylor sat in bed staring at her tablet. She was browsing the PRT store, looking for something she wanted to buy with her store credit. The problem being that most of the 'cool' items were too expensive. Most of the rest she wasn't actually allowed to purchase as a Ward or were useless to her, like Bluetooth headphones. She had considered glasses that would give her a heads-up display from her phones, but didn't really want to go back to wearing a pair. That and she didn't want to invite excessively bad habits by having constant access to the full functionality of her phones.
Eventually she gave up for the night and went to sleep. Tomorrow would be another day, after all.
Last edited: Oct 19, 2017
Chapter 25 Wednesday morning Taylor made her way to the PRT building to drop off her paperwork. She wondered how Missy had fared on that front, but none of the other Wards were around yet. Several of the protectorate were, though, and there was a lot of activity amongst the PRT troops.
She didn't pry, deciding that she was on what amounted to a medical leave anyway, and just made her way to the administrative office her paperwork needed to be dropped off at. They took the paperwork,
ensured it was correct, and informed her that she would get a message about when the next round of classes was scheduled once it had been processed.
Having accomplished that she made her way into the gym. She was considering making a habit of swinging by the gym at least every other day, but wasn't sure about the timing. Maybe directly after school during the week and in the morning on weekends?
Taylor had finished her workout and was making her way back through the PRT building to the parking garage when she felt Missy approaching. At some point the rest of the capes in the area had left,
but Taylor wasn't sure to where. Still, Taylor decided to pop into the Wards area for a few minutes to check on how Missy had fared with the firearms class form.
Besides, Taylor was actually somewhat hungry, and she found donuts and chocolate milk in the kitchen.
"Hello Missy," Taylor said as the door to the common area shut.
"How did the forms go?"
"Surprisingly easy," Missy answered as Taylor took another bite of her donut. "My parents were fighting, again, and didn't even read
what they were signing beyond that it was permission to take a class. I also used turning everything in as an excuse to leave earlier than they wanted me to this morning."
"Huh. I at least had to justify things to my father."
"My cunning plan was to wait for them to start fighting and then approach them. If they remember that they signed anything it will be in a few days and they probably won't bring it up. Or they will blame each other and start fighting again."
Taylor already knew that Missy didn't want pity for her home life and just shook her head. Missy rolled her eyes and grabbed a donut before going to get changed, leaving Taylor to finish her own donuts and milk.
Ten minutes later Taylor was wondering what she should do as she pulled out of the parking garage. Under normal circumstances she would probably have headed home and worked on school stuff or something, but she was still too far ahead and her teachers didn't want her submitting new work yet. The couple of exceptions she had no work to do for.
Deciding that she may as well wander the boardwalk aimlessly,
instead of going home and browsing the internet aimlessly, she headed in that direction. She knew of several places she could park her moped in the area. Because she could technically use the bicycle racks she wouldn't even have to worry about paying.
Lisa sat across from Brian, scowling into her cup. Brian had decided that Lisa had been over-using her power, which was correct, and dragged her out to the boardwalk to keep her away from her computers. The fact that Coil had been taken down and Lisa had been doing her best to both steal as much as possible from his accounts before others got to them, which wasn't much overall, and cover as many tracks leading back to them as possible didn't help her arguments of needing to continue. Mainly because Brian knew
she had pretty much done everything she could and had been in the process of triple-checking it all. Even with all of that she still didn't know who Coil even was, just that the PRT of all groups had taken him down.
No wonder she hadn't found the gang tracking him down, after all.
Because none of the gangs were.
But now they had the problem of no backer and no overall source of income, coupled with the PRT likely hunting them down eventually.
They needed some way to contact the PRT without being pounced on immediately, but their prior history was going to make that difficult.
She might have been using her power to try and find a way to accomplish that, but Brian had confiscated her painkillers. Ostensibly to prevent her from killing herself from overdose. Glancing up at him she wished that looks could kill. Well, for some cape somewhere they probably could, but not for her. Otherwise Coil wouldn't have been an issue for very long, after all.
Lisa blinked as she noticed someone behind Brian. That looked like,
what was her name, Taylor. Taylor Hebert. Jacob's niece, who could be an in for them with the PRT to get their story across before they were arrested. It could also end horribly, granted, but it was the best plan she had come up with yet.
"Brian," Lisa said, nodding in Taylor's general direction. "I think we should talk to Miss Hebert about our issues."
Brian spun around in his seat to take a look. "Why is she already staring at us?"
Lisa blinked. Shit, why was Taylor staring at them? She flinched as her headache got a lot worse, her power providing the answer.
"Because somehow she already knows we are parahumans." Lisa then blinked. "What the hell? My power just shut up, which admittedly is nice of it, if a bit disturbing."
Taylor had made several circuits of the boardwalk and it was approaching lunchtime. She had a bag with a few purchases, at least one from each circuit. A shirt she had found to be amusing, a hat, a pair of goggles that should work well with the helmet on the moped,
and a backup knife as a just in case option. The last was actually strapped to her leg, near her ankle under her pants.
Taylor had noted but ignored several parahumans that had passed through her range, but was coming up on a couple that she was likely to get line of sight on. She wasn't sure how she wanted to handle that. Maybe she could sneak past without being distracted?
After giving it some thought she switched her snark sense to line of sight and did her best to not look in the direction of the two parahumans, hoping that would work.
[Query]
Er, what? No, I don't want to tell you about myself.
[Excitement]
Yes, I understand you. Hello Inference Engine.
[Data]
Your human is ignoring you because using you gives her headaches and she used you too much recently. Huh. And you wish you didn't cause headaches but you can't change that. And your human and her friends need my help?
[Data]
They worked for Coil but because he tricked and/or forced them to.
Ok. Makes sense, I guess. And I can help them not be lumped in with him, potentially.
[Data]
I do not need to know everything you know about them!
[Data. Data]
Stop that already!
[Data. Data. Data]
Can we disconnect?
Negative
[Data. Data. Data. Data]
Taylor thought for a moment.
Would opening more connections just cause more data to come across?
Agreement
[Data. Data. Data. Data. Data]
Taylor groaned. Can we open all the connections at once, yell, and close them before Inference Engine can use them?
Contemplation
[Data. Data. Data. Data. Data. Data]
Agreement
Ok, let's try that.
[Data. Data. Data... ]
Maximum Connections Established
SHUT UP!
[... pain... ]
Additional Connections Closed
Taylor breathed a sigh of relief when that worked. She had a headache, knew way too much about way too many things, and for some reason felt like she needed a drink that wasn't worth getting her hands on because Amy and Riley had made her immune to alcohol. The bastards.
Still, one thing that she knew was that the two parahumans knew that she knew that they were parahumans. Though they probably didn't know that she knew that they knew that she knew. And they probably didn't know she was a parahuman. And they apparently needed her help, which was probably only going to happen if she could get them to join the Wards due to the PRT already being involved.
Taylor gave up on line of sight snark sense and switched back to area mode, then made her way over to the two. She wasn't sure what they wanted her to call them, though, so decided to avoid speaking names for the moment, even if she knew what names they were currently using in public.
Oh, and hello to you.
{Affirmation}
"Hello," Taylor said as she reached their table.
"Hi," Lisa said, looking around. "We should probably take this somewhere a little more private?"
"Works for me," Taylor said. "Any preferences for where? Personally,
I was looking for lunch."
"We can go over to the sub shop and grab one of their privacy booths," Lisa replied, getting up to lead the way.
The three of them had arrived at the sub shop and placed their orders. Lisa and Brian had looked a bit oddly at Taylor ordering two large subs for herself. Still, they paid for their subs and drinks before sitting down in one of the privacy booths. These booths had been designed so that capes could visit and eat in costume even if their lower faces were covered. As such they could activate a tinkertech privacy device and close a curtain.
Lisa had gotten into one side of the booth, Brian sitting next to her.
Taylor took the other side and moved her personal phone onto the table, set so that she could see it but the other two couldn't. Once all three were settled and the privacy features of the booth were in place Taylor decided it probably fell to her to begin. Before she spoke she queued up a few queries in the PRT app, suspecting she would need the information soon.
"So, you probably know that I am Taylor. I am unsure how to refer to the two of you," Taylor said, gesturing to Brian. "Do I call you Brian or Grue?" She then gestured to Lisa. "And do I call you Tattletale, Lisa,
or Sarah?"
"You can call me Brian for now. But Sarah?" Brian questioned. "Why would you..." He had turned to see that Lisa had gone pale. "Lisa?"
"Who told you that name?" Lisa finally asked. Very quietly. While apparently looking for an exit, which Brian was blocking.
[... data]
Thank you for telling me that. Feel free to tell me relevant things, in moderation. Or just chat without overloading me. If you can keep to that I won't hit you again.
[Agreement. Data.]
"I do not currently have any plans to drag you back to your parents,"
Taylor said, looking at Lisa. "I never worked for or with Coil, nor do I intend to hold any of what I know over you. My source of information
on you two was a very, shall we say, thorough thinker. Irritatingly thorough, in fact, didn't want to stop telling me things."
Lisa stared at Taylor, while Brian moved between staring at each of them in turn. Brian was obviously confused, but Lisa eventually flinched slightly before relaxing. A little. "You can call me Lisa for now."
[Gratitude]
You are welcome, and thanks for letting her know I am telling the truth. I didn't intend to worry her, but you didn't tell me that she would freak out at me knowing her birth name.
"So," Brian said. "I assume your thinker friend is the one who told you we are screwed over with Coil being taken down by the PRT today."
"Indeed," Taylor said, before taking a bite out of one of her subs. The other two had started on theirs as well. "So, my understanding is that Coil gathered your team together and kept you under control through various means. Whether it be literal guns to the head or dangling assistance just out of reach." She glanced over at her phone to check on things as they came back.
So you said something earlier about not being able to not cause pain. What is up with that?
[Elaboration]
"He was also offering a form of protection," Lisa admitted. "Making it harder for my family to find me."
"The PRT could probably legally remove your parents from the equation," Taylor said, flipping through a couple more pages on her phone. Yay Bluetooth module, they may not even know she was doing it. "They offer assistance when parents abuse their own or their children's parahuman abilities. They can also get siblings out of
environments that caused trigger events, and are willing to set up legal new identities with various assistance options for those looking to hide better."
Huh, causing pain to prevent over-use was defined before you were sent out as a limitation for this cycle? Interesting. How is the pain being caused?
[Explanation]
Brian looked at Taylor. "Your thinker is really well informed. I am kinda wishing they were on our side, because as hilarious as it is watching you out-Lisa Lisa it is also terrifying."
"Who says they aren't on your side?" Taylor rebutted. "Besides, I haven't called a PRT squad down on your heads or anything, have I?"
"Point. But, and this is probably a sticking point, some of us don't feel we can work with the PRT for various reasons."
"Such as your powers not being PR friendly? Or previous criminal records, or even fear of being treated as nothing more than a tool?"
Huh, your interface connection is set to cause minor, but non-
permanent, brain damage. That sounds nasty.
[Agreement]
"Would you stop imitating me?" Lisa groaned. "This is so irritating.
You seem to know everything and my headache means I can't really use my power."
Taylor smirked. "But it is so fun! Or have you never been on the other end of it before?"
Query
Huh. If you want to, why not. It is your data to share, after all.
"Still, the whole issue with PR-unfriendly powers will kinda hamper things," Brian said, slouching a bit. "I'm willing to do quite a bit for my sister, but I am not willing to try and conform to some stupid idea of how a hero behaves, and my power is really good at causing people to panic."
Data
[Excitement. Gratitude]
Taylor looked at Brian. So, what do you do for him? Because I only know what Inference Engine told me.
{Exposition}
You create dead zones where radiation, including light, is absorbed and sound is muffled because you are collecting the energy? Taylor blinked at that. Huh. Can you feed other snarks with that energy?
"Well, I suspect that at least two of the four of you could apply for anti-hero branding," Taylor admitted. "Though, Bitch is it? She is the most likely to need a full probation, and that has an entirely different rule set." Taylor flipped her phone to the basic anti-hero description page and triggered a lock of the screen so that it couldn't be navigated away without her password, then turned the phone around so the other two could look at it.
Lisa stared at the phone, that Taylor had just touched for the first time since they sat down. "Holy crap. Is your thinker friend a precog?"
{Agreement. Clarification}
Only one at a time, and you usually pass the extra energy to Distributor? Huh. Good to know. Not that Taylor knew who Distributor was, or if she would ever meet them.
"The only precog I have had any interaction with on any level I know of is Coil," Taylor admitted. "My talents lie elsewhere. As an example,
I picked up a few tricks from my uncle."
Brian had focused on reading the information on the phone in front of him, blinking a few times. "How in the world is this not more generally known? I might have gone straight to the PRT if I had known half of this, let alone the likelihood of getting my sister away from my parents."
"Escaping my parents would have been easier had I known about some of that myself," Lisa admitted after shaking her head as though to clear it. "Even if I don't think I fit the anti-hero template. But I still don't want to be used as a tool."
"The sheer number of rules designed to prevent that happening,"
Taylor started, trailing off. "Why don't I just show you?" She flipped her phone around, unlocked it, and brought up some of the rules in question. Re-locking the screen like she had before she then flipped the phone back so that Lisa in particular could see it.
[Query]
No, I don't really want to explain how I did that right now. Sorry.
Lisa stared at the phone, then at Taylor, and back at the phone. She then flinched, and looked even more confused. "How the hell?"
Looking up at Taylor she figured she wasn't getting an explanation,
but read over the rules anyway. "Huh. These are actually reasonable."
The three of them spent the rest of their lunch discussing ins and outs of joining up with the PRT. Taylor discreetly discussed things with Miss Militia via text messaging on her Maul phone, who approved what she was doing and promised support. The "Oh good,
we were wondering how to contact them" message indicated that they had found some information from Coil or his base.
Finally they had finished eating and were preparing to leave.
"So, you would like to meet a Ward or two," Taylor said, tapping her chin. "I think I can get a patrol to swing by that warehouse the four of you are using as a base, if that is ok with you?"
"Your thinker is bullshit," Brian said, shaking his head. "And I thought Lisa was bad."
"If you only knew," Taylor replied, grinning.
"We should probably give you our phone numbers," Lisa said, pulling out a pad of paper. "So that the patrol can let us know they are coming."
Taylor grinned. I suppose you know all of their phone numbers?
[Agreement. Data]
Taylor's grin deepened. "Would you prefer they call your primary numbers or one of your burners?"
Lisa stared at Taylor. "No fucking way you know all of our phone numbers. Even I couldn't pull that off that easily."
Taylor rattled off a series of phone numbers. Brian's eyebrow raised at the first couple, while Lisa's jaw dropped as she paled a little.
Taylor didn't mention that she was adding them all to both of her phones at the same time.
"Just have them use one of the burners," Brian finally said, shaking his head. "Though I don't know why, given how much info you have."
Taylor waved to Lisa and Brian as she left, heading for her moped.
She figured she had probably done enough out here for the day.
Lisa, on the other hand, only realized that her headache was gone after Taylor had already left. Once she noticed, though, she tried to
use her power to find out who Taylor's parahuman information source was.
The answer she got made her pale further.
Taylor had barely started moving on her moped when a message from Miss Militia arrived, asking her to stop by the PRT building.
Taylor figured it was about the Undersiders and that she should get it over with, so headed towards the PRT building instead of home.
Once she arrived she noted that Coil was where she believed the prison cells to be, and Miss Militia was likely in her office. Taylor headed to the latter location, not having any need or desire to talk to Coil.
"Good afternoon Miss Militia," Taylor said as she entered the office.
Miss Militia gestured to the chair across from her.
"So, I don't see a visitor's badge today," Miss Militia noted. "Yet you aren't in costume?"
"I am barred from acting as a Ward until tomorrow, aren't I?"
"You are correct, yet you intercepted two members of a villain team and chatted with them over lunch?"
"That was more of a chance meeting than anything else."
Miss Militia shook her head. "Yes, well. As you likely know because of that meeting, this morning we moved against Coil. Thanks to your work with Armsmaster and Kid Win things went incredibly smoothly,
though Coil's men did successfully wipe three quarters of his database. Basic information on the Undersiders was recovered more due to some hardcopies of payment information than anything else."
"I have a larger amount of information, but I don't think most of it is mine to share without their permission. I will say that from the point
of view of approaching them for Wards membership at least two of them will want protection from their families, and one of them will want protection for their sibling who is still in the environment that caused their own trigger event."
Miss Militia made note of that, probably alerting other PRT staff to the possible issues, before turning back to Taylor. "Thank you for the heads up. Now then, what I requested your presence for has to do with Coil's takedown. It was decided that Armsmaster, Kid Win, and you should get first pick at a couple of pieces of the confiscated stockpiled tech and tinkertech each as an additional repayment for your work on Monday. Armsmaster deferred to you and Kid Win due to his superior tinkering budget, and Kid Win deferred to you on the basis that you will be more likely to look for something directly useful instead of useful for parts." Miss Militia picked a tablet up off of the desk and handed it to Taylor. "This is a preliminary inventory of items that had been stockpiled, but doesn't include anything that was already in use."
Taylor took the tablet and looked over the list showing on it. It was already filtered to 'Wards Appropriate'. Most of the inventory appeared to be energy projecting weapons, but there were other items as well. Some of them surprised Taylor. "There were tinkertech toilets in his stock?"
"I believe those are designed to work with the tinkertech power armor."
"Oh. And full home theater systems?"
"He didn't skimp on the break areas for his mercenaries and was preparing several new ones, likely before hiring more mercenaries."
Taylor picked her way through the list, looking at the details on a number of items. Eventually she had narrowed down her choices. "I think one of the home theater systems would be nice, or maybe one of the single-room comfort units?"
Miss Militia blinked at that. "You don't want any of the weapons?"
"Nope, my snark and I don't want energy weapons. We prefer to hit things."
Miss Militia took the tablet back from Taylor and made some notes. "I see. Would you like whichever you are permitted delivered to your home?"
"I would appreciate that."
Danny had picked up some takeout for dinner, but otherwise there wasn't much going on that evening. Instead the two of them were sitting in the living room watching the evening news. Well, Danny was watching the news, Taylor had her tablet downstairs and was poking around on PHO.
So far they had covered a major fire in New York that was considered notable because villainous capes had helped put it out, a deal being brokered between multiple cape groups in Australia, and an anti-cape protest in California. Finally, though, they reached the go-to news for the past week in Texas.
It looked like it was final push time to drive the Slaughterhouse Nine out of Plaistow. The apparent drone-camera was showing an overview of where the Slaughterhouse Nine were bunkered down with a pile of hostages, half-surrounded by PRT vans and capes.
Taylor looked for Riley and grinned as she spotted the girl in a blood-
covered sundress.
Crawler had just been knocked back by an explosive when Taylor and Danny both had alerts come up on their phones. Taylor blinked,
the alert hitting her brain, while Danny fumbled with his phone.
"Shit, Simurgh is starting an attack run," Taylor said, eyes wide.
"Australia?"
Just over twenty seconds after Taylor and Danny had gotten alerts the news feed caught up, the PRT troops all obviously getting the alert and backing off. Under normal circumstances they would be cutting away to breaking news that the Simurgh was attacking.
These were not normal circumstances, however, as the Slaughterhouse Nine also backed off and checked their own devices. The Endbringer alerts were a free service, after all, so anyone could receive them. Why wouldn't the Nine care?
The next shock, and the reason the station hadn't cut the feed, was when Crawler and Mannequin took advantage of the distracted state of the PRT officers to jump past their line. The other members of the Nine were cutting hostages free and ushering them out of the stronghold in an obvious upholding of the Endbringer truce,
suspending operations of heroic or villainous bent for the duration of an attack.
The person operating the drone then got their act together and changed the camera angle, catching that Crawler and Mannequin were heading straight for where a beacon had been lit. Plaistow had an Endbringer rally point. The news station had only one explanation, given that the rest of the Nine were upholding the truce.
Crawler and Mannequin were, against all predictions, intending to join the fight in Australia.
Chapter 26 Thursday morning Taylor woke up a little later than usual. Then again, she had been up later than usual following the goings-on in Australia to the best of her ability. Ned and Mannequin, or Alan as she had found out his name was, had actually sent her text messages while they waited for pickup thanking her for being hurt because it meant they were in a position to join the Endbringer fight.
Which was a bit creepy, honestly, but she suspected neither of them realized that.
Riley had messaged her after they had left Plaistow. Apparently ending a Slaughterhouse Nine run without a mob of capes chasing them was an odd experience for her. She had, however, predicted that the only things that would stop Ned and Alan were death or the Simurgh retreating beyond their range. In Ned's case it had basically ended up being both, though it took a couple of hours before Taylor found that out.
The after-action reports indicated that Alan had an unusually strong desire to fight the Simurgh, bystanders be damned. To that end he had continuously attacked, being torn apart bit by bit with each attack as the Simurgh seemed to merely play with him. Halfway through the battle he had succumbed to his various injuries and perished, but he was credited with being a significant distraction that allowed others to more effectively regroup between assaults. Despite not caring about injuring others around him he had undoubtedly saved a large number of lives.
Ned had, against all odds, caused relatively significant damage to the Simurgh near the end of the battle. He just kept adapting to whatever she threw at him and was credited as having helped Legend and Eidolon to drive her off after his acid had somehow become extremely effective against her. Her parting shot, however,
finished him off. A single-shot tinkertech gun, partially assembled from Alan's remains, had apparently torn him apart at a molecular
level. The fact that he reportedly jumped in front of the shot instead of allowing it to hit Legend, however, had caused people to wonder just what they were supposed to think of the rest of the Nine.
The end result was one of the lower-casualty Simurgh fights in the past few years. And yet, despite all of that, the attack had still lasted long enough to result in the need to dome Canberra.
Uncle Jacob had called her shortly after word on the outcome had come back. He had found out that Ned and Alan had thanked her while waiting for pickup and wanted to ensure she didn't feel their deaths were her fault. She hadn't even considered that, really,
because she knew that Ned had wanted to participate in Endbringer fights and Alan had a death wish, though she hadn't known that he had a particular hatred for the Simurgh before Jacob had told her.
Besides, in that case if it were anyone's fault it was probably Vicky's.
Aside from things from the night before, Taylor had messages waiting for her. Apparently the taser and containment foam lessons were now scheduled for tomorrow, with knifework and the first firearms lesson on Saturday. Amy had let her know that she was out of town for a day to help out with the Canberra aftermath, and her digital vouchers for participating in the betting for the next Slaughterhouse Nine and Endbringer targets were available.
Taylor blinked at that last one. She had betting vouchers? Maybe that is why Riley had let her know their next target. While she would wait a bit for the Slaughterhouse Nine betting, she figured that she had no hope on figuring out the Endbringers so she submitted a bet that Leviathan would attack Brockton Bay. Leviathan because he was the most likely next Endbringer, and Brockton Bay was coastal,
right?
Taylor had arrived at the PRT building to find it devoid of parahumans, barring Coil locked up in his cell. She supposed that wasn't that big of a surprise, given that she was early for any Wards
activities and the Protectorate was probably still dealing with the aftermath of the Simurgh attack. As such Taylor hit the gym for a bit.
That didn't stop her from poking Coil's snark, though. No other parahumans around had her feeling a little bit of a need for interaction on that front.
Good morning.
[Amusement]
Having fun?
[Agreement]
Your human can't get out of the cell without killing himself, so you are picking the worst case scenarios whenever he tries? Including improbable coincidences and perfectly positioned ricochets?
[Elaboration]
Huh. Your human must be a bit of a mess right now.
[Agreement]
Taylor paused while pulling on her workout clothing and took a moment to pull out one of her phones to look up if there was any way to report insight into a prisoner's powers. It took her five minutes to find one, and she submitted that Coil's apparently was able to pick and choose what happened in the alternate timeline, down to the ridiculously improbable, if it so desired. Apparently for amusement factor.
That done, she finished changing and started her workout.
An hour later there were still no new parahumans around, so Taylor got into costume and visited the junkyard. She found some office furniture, but took a lot more interest in the school desks, obviously
from Winslow. She actually spent half an hour sorting through them to find specific desks. Those desks were then set up in a cleared space, and Maul's maul came out to play.
Taylor snapped out of her destruction-fest as noon approached,
specifically when she felt Missy enter her range. At some point she had finished breaking the wooden tops off of all of the school desks and had started smashing their metal bits together into a crude castle-like structure. The remains of those desks Taylor had identified as ones the trio had always used having been turned into something like a crude throne in the middle of it. She couldn't quite recall why the pile of smashed wood was off to one side.
She considered the likelihood that she still had some issues to work out as she made her way back to the Wards area. By the time she arrived she had put the likelihood at a 'definite maybe' at a minimum.
A very high minimum.
Missy had spent some time in the gym herself, but that gave Taylor time to clean up a little. She was disappointed to find that there were no donuts available, and no pizza. She didn't think the normal pile of admittedly healthy snack food was going to sate her hunger right now. Perhaps she needed to visit one of the cafeterias?
As a distraction she decided to look up options for getting a burner phone without stopping by a store to just buy one. She figured if the Undersiders wanted to be contacted via one of their burner phones then Taylor should reciprocate, right? Instead she quickly found that she could toggle an option on either of her phones that would anonymize any calls made or text messages sent while it was active.
The other end couldn't reply to text messages and the calls couldn't be returned, but that wasn't an issue for a one-shot message to the Undersiders.
The anonymization option document referenced several others. One of which would allow Taylor to accept mobile to mobile payments or,
with an adapter she didn't have, credit and debit card payments. For
what wasn't specified, but the money could be directed to the PRT or to her debit account. On a whim she added said adapter to her PRT store cart, but didn't place the order yet. Instead she looked for things she was allowed to charge for.
Missy was just coming in as Taylor came to the conclusion that she was allowed to charge for pretty much jack shit unless she carried merchandise around to sell to people. Being an anti-hero didn't help there.
"Hello Taylor," Missy said, wandering over to where Taylor was laid out on the couch. "I came in to take advantage of the computers to browse the internet in peace. What are you doing in?"
"Took advantage of the gym and played in the junkyard," Taylor answered. "Kinda surprised how slow things are today."
"The twenty-four hours after an Endbringer battle are a semi-official time off for parahumans. Extra unofficial patrols only, as the gangs punish their own members quite hard if they pull anything. Doesn't apply to areas with significant non-parahuman gang presence,
though, which is why it is semi-official. Brockton Bay, of course, has pretty much nil on the non-parahuman gang front."
"Huh. Good to know, wish it had been in the introductory information or something. Want to unofficially visit a villain group to try and convince them to join the Wards?"
Missy blinked at that. "How in the world do you know where to find a villain group?"
"I ran into a couple of them yesterday and we had a chat over lunch.
Speaking of lunch, I am also starving after having hit the gym and then the junkyard."
Missy got a grin on her face. "Don't suppose you are hungry enough to try and beat your challenger speed record?"
Taylor gave that some thought. She had pretty much gone 'beat things up fugue', and she was actually getting mild stomach pains from the hunger at this point. "You know what? I think that sounds like a great idea."
Missy darted off to get changed, giggling the whole way.
Taylor lightly burped as she finished her second milkshake. She had,
somehow, pulled off the challenger in just over twenty five minutes,
topped off with an extra basket of fries and two milkshakes over the following eight minutes. That put her in the top five times, and she doubted she was going to do much better. Even if tinkers, bio or otherwise, were bullshit.
This time they had actually set up multiple cameras in advance to record her for their website, and as additional proof of her accomplishment. Not to mention she was now barred from taking the challenge again for a year. Missy, however, had a question.
"How in the world did you do that while maintaining proper table etiquette?" Missy asked, staring at Taylor. "I mean, it was basic as you didn't have a formal place setting, but you didn't deviate even once that I noticed!"
"I was taught to eat properly whenever using a fork and knife," Taylor answered. "It is just what I do."
Taylor got a new picture taken for the wall and left with Missy,
heading in the general direction of the docks. The crowd that had formed when word got out that the cameras were being set up at Fugly's slowly dispersed behind them, a number of them already having posted pictures or short video clips on PHO.
Taylor had also taken the wait time and the time she was eating to review the PRT files on the Undersiders. Interestingly, they only had details on Rachel Lindt and Grue. The former was wanted for questioning in the aftermath of her trigger event after a post-transfer
review of her file had brought questions up. The PRT ENE didn't agree with the original findings on her once they got the file due to her known presence in Brockton Bay. Beyond that she had nothing more than a few relatively minor offenses, given that the 'resisting arrest' charges from other jurisdictions had all been dropped.
Grue, on the other hand, had a pile of notes regarding observed uses of his power. Beyond that he was merely listed as a mercenary until he had arrived in Brockton Bay. Most of the charges on record for him were for minor offenses or as an accessory to others, and none were problematic for recruitment.
The other two had minimal data for their current identities. Lisa, in fact, had pretty much nothing but a note that she existed. 'Alec', as he currently liked to be called, was similar, but his file from past actions had more. That file, though, had justifications attached due to likely influence of other parahumans, and thus he was 'clean' from a recruitment point of view.
She explained the absolute basics of most of this to Missy on the way over, figuring that Missy could look up more details herself later if she was curious. Assuming she had access, anyway, otherwise she didn't need to know.
Taylor and Missy had stopped as Taylor found the Undersiders just within her range. She poked at the two snarks she only recognized in passing for a moment, figuring it was better to not be too distracted with snarks she hadn't spoken to before.
Hello [Woof] {Annoyance}
Taylor blinked. What?
"So, you still haven't told me which group we are meeting," Missy said, looking around at where they had stopped. "Also, are we close
yet?"
"They are just inside my range," Taylor answered. "And they call themselves the Undersiders."
Taylor pulled up a file she had been working on with notes on the four, mostly pulled from Lisa's snark's info-dumping and her talking with Brian's snark. She added a note that Rachel's snark appears to be unusually canine-focused, not just Rachel herself.
"So, do they know we are coming?" Missy asked. "Or are we aiming to surprise them?"
"I'm going to ping them on one of their burner phones," Taylor responded. "They look to all be there, so give me a moment to send a message."
Taylor flipped her Maul phone to anonymous mode and looked over the list of burners she had. She wondered which one would be the best one to use. Hmmm.
Hello! I want to play a prank on your human. Can you tell me which burner phone would have the best impact when I send a text message?
[Excitement. Data.]
Huh. Lisa has five phones lined up in a row, and even bought two new ones? What is this, a test?
[Agreement]
She wants to see if it is time travel or mind reading? Huh. And while you know which phone is which, she placed the identical phones randomly while blindfolded with the help of the others so that she wouldn't know which was which and hasn't asked you which order they are in.
Taylor grinned. She probably shouldn't, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. She queued up a number of text messages to fire off at one second intervals.
"Let's get a little closer before I send the text message, so that we are near enough for them to spot if they look out the window," Taylor said, gesturing forward. Missy wasn't sure what to make of the grin Taylor had, though.
A minute later they were on the rooftop across the street from the Undersider's warehouse, and Taylor fired off her text messages such that they would trigger the phones in the order Lisa had placed them.
Hello Wards Are Waiting Outside Taylor then mentally sat back, chatting with Lisa's snark, waiting for the next opportunity or for word it was safe for her and Missy to enter.
Lisa jumped as the first phone made noise, grabbing it. As she did so the second one made noise, then the third, fourth, and fifth. In order. And her power said that the messages were effectively exactly one second apart. A bit apprehensive, she opened the first phone and found that it merely said 'Hello'. Moving down the line of phones she assembled the complete message.
"Hello Wards Are Waiting Outside," Lisa said, staring in disbelief.
"Well, that settles that. Either we are stuck in a stable time loop or there are bullshit shenanigans outside of my frame of reference going on."
"What are you talking about?" Brian asked.
"The phones, which were in random order, had a message delivered.
In order."
Speaking of the phones, Lisa had put them down in a different order.
Not intentionally, but out of frustration with the whole message. And they all fired off their notifications sounds again, in the new order.
"What the hell?" Lisa said, checking the new messages. "Bullshit Out Of Your Reference. Did they get a bug in here? Or are they clairvoyant?"
"Stranger power and they are already in here?" Alec offered, looking around. He didn't think anyone else was in here, but that didn't mean anything with Stranger powers.
"My power is telling me that none of that is on the mark," Lisa grumbled as she mixed the phones up and dropped her personal phone into the mix. A moment later all six phones did the notification dance, again in order.
"Ok, that is actually somewhat impressive," Brian admitted. "What do they have to say this time?"
"Are You Going To Mask Up?" Lisa read off the various phones.
"They know we aren't masked up? How?"
"Should we even bother?" Brian asked. "After all, there is a good chance they know quite a bit about us already. And Taylor has already seen both of us in civvies."
"I don't suppose we can get them to tell us what they know of our names?" Alec asked. "I would rather not get up to get my mask if they know who I am already." In response Alec's phone went off. He looked at it and paled, before turning off his game. "Yea, just have them come in."
"I don't actually have any way to contact them," Lisa admitted,
waving at the phones. She did give a worried glance at Alec, though.
"All of these are anonymous messages. No numbers to call, and Taylor didn't give us any way of contacting them yesterday."
Of course, that was when the doorbell that they thought was disconnected ding-donged.
What do you mean Lisa doesn't know who his father is? You obviously do, as you told me.
[Clarification]
Oh, she never confirmed it out of respect for him not wanting to reveal it, given that she didn't want to reveal her past. Huh. I am somewhat wishing you had respected both of their decisions right now.
[Apologies]
So, yesterday you mentioned that Alec disconnected the doorbell by moving the wires to the screws holding the button on instead of the button contacts? Why didn't he unplug the main unit?
[Agreement. Data.]
He didn't want to get out the ladder and was going on a snack run anyway? Lazy.
[Agreement]
"Let's go down and ring the doorbell," Taylor said to Missy. A moment later Missy had pushed the button to no effect. "No, the button isn't working, but the wires are attached to the screws." Taylor showed a small piece of metal she had found on the roof, then touched it to the two screw heads. She heard the doorbell go off inside, though wasn't sure Missy could.
A minute later Brian had answered the door, then blinked at Taylor. "I thought Wards were visiting?"
"What am I, chopped liver?" Missy retorted from next to Taylor.
Brian double-taked, then shook his head. "Sorry. Come on in."
He led them upstairs to where the others were waiting. Lisa watched them enter, then went wide-eyed at seeing Taylor. "YOU!"
"Me?" Taylor responded. She felt an odd tickle in her arm, but ignored it. "What about me?"
Lisa just stared at Taylor, eventually flinching in pain. Finally she spoke. "I can't believe I fell for the idiots on PHO deciding you couldn't be a parahuman. But as best as I can tell you are a Brute/Blaster, so your pile of tricks makes no sense."
"Blaster yes, Brute is more of a secondary," Taylor responded,
grinning. Huh, there's another tickle in her leg? But not quite. Odd.
Lisa stared at Taylor, flinching a couple more times, then groaned.
"Goddamnit, you are a Trump, aren't you? Power copier, maybe?
No, that doesn't fit." She flinched a couple more times as she glared at Taylor. "You can communicate with powers."
"Huh, given that I refused to tell your snark anything, that is pretty impressive."
"And I am the parahuman who told you everything by virtue of my power telling you everything, including real-time what we were doing,
and my choice of wording when trying to figure you out was just bad enough to get horribly misled."
"Garbage in, garbage out," Taylor said, grinning. Her grin lowered a little as she felt something in her arm again. "I believe Coil figured that out recently, after having you spend so much time looking for the gang following him when it was the PRT."
"I am horribly confused right now," Brian admitted. "What is going on?"
"You know enough about us that I am telling them about you," Lisa declared, then turned to Brian. "Meet Maul, apparently the new Ward, also known as Taylor Hebert. She apparently has been using my own power to play us for fools."
"I was playing you for a fool," Taylor interrupted. "I was under the impression that Brian was enjoying the spectacle."
"And in repayment your power told my power how to make my headaches clear up faster," Lisa continued, blinking at that revelation. "I suppose I should thank you for that, at least. But that just makes things more confusing in some ways. What the hell do you want?"
"To help you? And prank you, but I already did that."
Lisa stared at Taylor, then slumped down into a chair. "Screw it. You are here to pitch the Wards to us as an alternative to being caught up in the Coil cleanup, right?"
"Your snark seemed to think you needed help."
"Let me get Rachel and we'll see what you have to say," Brian said,
heading down a hallway. Taylor knew that Rachel was down there,
probably with at least a couple of dogs.
Lisa groaned, then furrowed her brow. "You claimed you had picked up a few tricks from your uncle, but were just using my own power against me. Kinda. How does that..."
Taylor blinked as Lisa paled considerably. What did you just tell her?
[Data]
Goddamnit.
"I believe both my uncle and I would appreciate it if you kept your mouth shut," Taylor warned. Lisa, who had indeed been about to say
something, closed her mouth so quickly you could hear her teeth impact one another.
Taylor popped a message off to Jacob asking if she needed to do anything when a thinker figured out their parahuman relation. She had just barely gotten the message off when she heard something large coming down the hallway.
Brian's "Damnit, Rachel!" was another hint, of course.
Taylor pushed Missy out of the way as the large, er, dog? Most likely a dog. The large dog came out of the hallway and pounced. It missed them, but spun around to pounce again. Taylor took the
opportunity to uppercut the thing with her power while it was still mid-
air, throwing it into a confused spin that it landed poorly from. A
moment later the gap between Taylor and the dog expanded significantly.
What the hell?
[Growl]
Taylor watched as a second dog bounded over the first and headed in Taylor's direction. Taylor responded with a power-enhanced kick,
knocking it back in shock. Taylor suspected it wasn't quite enough to
actually injure the thing, though. And what the hell was that not-
quite-a-tickle feeling that kept popping up?
Hey, we were basically invited by Lisa and Brian.
[Woof]
Of course, two wasn't enough and the third dog had gone for Missy instead. She played with expanding and contracting space while Taylor finally grabbed her wok. One quick swing and they had another confused, but potentially actually injured, dog on their hands.
And a dented chair that had gotten caught in the crossfire.
No, we aren't canines. I don't have a canine pet, don't know about Vista though. If she does I have never smelled one on her.
[Whine]
Taylor absently noted that Lisa was looking absolutely terrified right now. Huh. Perhaps Uncle Jacob's reputation wasn't always a good thing. Still, a quick couple of whistles and the three dogs backed off,
moving over to a girl Taylor assumed was Rachel. Said girl started examining the potentially injured dog right away, the other two having taken a protective stance.
"Been running from the Protectorate since I triggered," Rachel said,
standing with what looked to be a defensive posture once she was done looking over the dog. "Don't want to turn myself in now."
Having an idea, because she hadn't prepared for Rachel to be quite that canine-inclined, Taylor flew through her Maul phone's app list.
There was supposed to be a chat program in here for talking to someone at the PRT. Spotting it she opened it up. It had a nice handy quick menu for what kind of thing she wanted to chat about.
Hitting 'parahuman recruitment questions' she waited for it to indicate a connection.
PRT: Good morning Maul. How can I help you?
Maul: I am attempting to peacefully recruit Hellhound, or Bitch as she prefers. Is there a PRT region with a lot of wild dogs?
"I am not here to arrest you," Taylor said. "I am here to try and help.
Your previous backer was just arrested, after all, so all of you are in limbo."
Rachel turned to look at Lisa and Brian. Both nodded to her. She looked annoyed, but another whistle and the dogs settled down.
They didn't shrink or anything, though, and still looked ready to move at any moment.
PRT: It looks like Texas has been having significant issues with wild dogs recently. For your reference, they have been killing wild dogs on sight for the past few months.
Maul: Thank you. I think that will help. The person from the PRT closed the connection after that.
"I am unsure if you would be allowed to operate in New England,"
Taylor continued. "Given that you are a bit too well known here. But the PRT has been having issues with wild dogs in Texas. They currently have no option but to kill them on sight. I think you could help them do better."
Lisa looked slightly confused. Brian looked slightly impressed. Alec looked like the world didn't make sense right now? And Rachel looked majorly pissed off. Maybe this was the wrong choice?
"They are killing the dogs?" Rachel asked.
"Because they have no other option right now," Taylor answered,
scratching her leg in the hopes of making the tickle-like sensation stop. "But if you were to work with them they wouldn't need to, would they?"
Rachel stared at Taylor, as though judging her. She then turned to Lisa. "Is that true?"
Lisa blinked, then picked a laptop up from the table. A quick search and she showed Rachel a photo of several dead dogs being loaded into a PRT vehicle. Rachel growled, then turned back into the hallway.
"Where are you going?" Brian asked as the dogs followed Rachel.
"To gather my things," Rachel responded. "Need to go to Texas."
Taylor blinked. That seemed a bit too easy.
"How prepared are you, because I don't think my power helped you much there," Lisa asked. "And what magic offers are you going to give the rest of us?"
"I'll be nice and tell you that my visor has a heads-up display for my phone," Taylor answered. Lisa blinked, then scowled? What was she, annoyed that she hadn't figured that out herself?
"I am really disliking that my power doesn't quite work the right way on you," Lisa grumbled. "And I still want to know how you pulled the trick with your phone yesterday."
"As for offers for the rest of you, as I implied yesterday, for Lisa and Alec I think the PRT can swing legal protection from your families.
While Brian, you know that I mentioned the PRT potentially helping your sister. Though Alec, I might have to talk to your snark a little to find out what your full options are."
"Only if you tell me why your nervous system is so freaky," Alec retorted. "It is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a normal one in several ways."
Taylor blinked at that. What? Oh, right, he could make people flinch and stuff, was that was the tickle-like sensations were? "Er, I was the target of a tinker fugue?" Huh, Brian, Lisa, and Alec all flinched at that. That was a really prevalent thing in the cape community,
apparently.
"Damnit," Lisa groaned. "You have Bluetooth in your brain, don't you? That's how you pulled the phone trick. And how you likely got a brute rating without being a brute."
"Your power is bullshit and is likely going to see you signing a lot of forms in the future," Taylor retorted. Lisa groaned more theatrically this time, but Alec just waved for Taylor to get on with it.
Hello again
[Annoyance]
Why are you annoyed?
[Boredom. Repetition]
Huh. He's a lazy ass who never explores what you can do, and even when you push him to do things he doesn't have it in him to care?
[Agreement]
What do you want him to do?
[Elaboration]
You want him to find new ways to play with nerves, and damaged nerves, and stuff like that? Potentially even puppet entire people.
Huh.
"Yea, not sure how you would fit in," Taylor said aloud. "You probably need to see a therapist. A lot." Alec just shrugged at that. "And given what your snark wants, and you are ignoring, you may need to be
very not-public. So, beyond all of that, I was hoping that my semi-
silent partner here would be able to answer any questions about, you
know, being a Ward. Given that my experience is atypical, so far."
"Awww," Missy said, taking a sip of her soda? When did she pull out a soda? "Is the floor show over? Damn. And your experience is completely out there, not atypical. The floor show being a case in point."
Brian and Alec spent a couple hours speaking to Missy about the Wards. Alec really didn't seem to care either way, beyond if Missy agreed that the PRT could keep him away from his family. Brian kept asking if something Missy said was different for anti-heroes, most of the things he did that for required Taylor to be consulted or searches to be performed. About three quarters of those she answered that yes, things were different. Lisa just watched and listened for the time
being, though she had the laptop on her lap and occasionally searched for things.
At one point Taylor got a response back from Jacob, telling her that the thinker should, if at all possible, be convinced to sign an NDA,
and he provided a link to the form to request said NDA. Otherwise Taylor needed to fill out a couple of other forms within a week. He did mention that if the thinker was being recruited that it could wait a few days, though.
Rachel also eventually came out with bags and three normal looking dogs, and asked Taylor if the PRT would pick her up or if she had to go across town herself. Taylor decided to call for a pickup van for her, which was mildly annoying. Once she had explained the situation to them the PRT dispatcher was apparently impressed. The requested van showed up about half an hour later with only a couple of PRT officers in it. Rachel loaded up her dogs and things before getting in herself and was taken back to the PRT building.
Brian, Lisa, and Alec said they would stop by the PRT in the coming days after giving things some thought, and Taylor assumed doing some more research. Or at least Lisa would do more research, and maybe Brian. Taylor provided her Maul phone's number in case they had more questions or wanted help getting into the PRT unnoticed.
She also provided them with a general information number in case they wanted to ask the PRT questions directly.
Missy looked at Taylor as they approached the PRT building later that afternoon. "You need to stop making the rest of us look bad."
"What?" Taylor asked, confused.
"Rehabilitating villains before you are even officially introduced? You do realize that Hellhound, or Bitch, or whatever she wants to be called is going to be put down as a personal recruitment by you,
even if I was present, don't you?"
"Er, no, didn't know they tracked that."
"Miss 'I apparently read everything' didn't know that?"
"It hadn't come up in my reading yet. Probably one of those things I
would have been informed of eventually, but my training is kinda off-
kilter due to the issues with scheduling me."
Missy frowned at that. "I wonder when they will get around to announcing you. I mean, you have hopefully been visible enough."
"I figure they are allowed a little leeway, with Coil and the Simurgh.
Not to mention me spending a couple weeks in the hospital."
"Ok, yea. Timing has sucked."
The two of them made their way back into the PRT building to get changed before heading home for the day, though Taylor did poke Coil's snark long enough to find out that it had somehow made him paranoid of the toilet in his cell? Perhaps she should be avoiding talking to that particular snark.
Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
Chapter 27 Friday morning Taylor hit the gym again, but today she had an older set of clothing she didn't particularly care for as her workout clothes.
She could tell Miss Militia was around today, and Coil was still locked up. She wondered when he was being moved to another facility. Still,
that wasn't something she currently had to worry about. Rachel was on the edge of her current range. Taylor thought that might be where
some apartment buildings were, perhaps the PRT had some for non-
prisoner use?
After completing her workout she skipped cleaning up and changing into other clothing, instead heading straight to the Wards area. She found that today a box of donuts had been delivered and started with a jelly donut as she browsed PHO a bit on her phones. It looked like her stunt at Fugly's yesterday had spawned a new thread about Maul. In fact, if she was right the thread had been made while she was still at Fugly's. The official Fugly's videos were linked to, as well as a few cell phone camera clips. The fact that she was there with Vista was also mentioned.
More amusing, from her point of view, was that they were now assuming she was an affiliate of some kind. Because there had been no 'New Ward' or 'New Protectorate Member' press conference featuring her.
She also found a mention of a press conference on Sunday, delayed due to the Simurgh attack, that was to cover what had happened with Coil. Not that the public knew that much, but Taylor was able to read between the lines. Mainly due to the their mentioning of the financial district, granted, but still.
Beyond that she didn't spot anything else that caught her notice. She was a bit bummed that the hammer discussion hadn't continued, but what they had said already was still interesting. Going back to the latest Maul thread she replied as Maul, grinning as she did so.
Thank you, Fugly's, for making a wonderful burger. My only complaint is that when I am really hungry it just isn't quite enough, though your milkshakes have been nice afterwards.
Still, have you considered making a version of your challenger with two patties instead of the one?
Taylor wasn't sure she could eat such a burger, granted. But if they offered one she wasn't sure she would turn down the challenge either. She just might have to play a bit in the junkyard first. After skipping breakfast. And making it a late lunch.
Taylor waited outside of the training room to be used for the taser lesson. Missy had just entered her range, but Miss Militia was almost to the training room. Taylor wasn't sure what to think about that,
since she was expecting a PRT officer instead.
"Hello Miss Hebert," Miss Militia said as she approached, a weapon transport crate being pulled behind her.
"Hello Miss Militia," Taylor returned.
"I was hoping to have a chat with you before we begin, if you would join me inside?"
Taylor got up and followed Miss Militia into the training room, then watched as the door was locked. She found there were several chairs in the room today, and a hand gesture directed her to sit in one of them.
"Normally we wouldn't bother you post-recruitment with her assigned to others," Miss Militia started. "But we are having issues with Miss Lindt. I was hoping you might have some insight into her that we lack."
"Most of my insight is that her snark is really canine-focused," Taylor said after some thought. "Which has likely left her more able to relate
to canines than to humans. Even to my power her snark sounds canine-like."
"I see. That might explain a few things, and now that you mention it I think I see where her body language and reactions were more like a canine's than a human's. That and we thought she had been unusually trusting, but overly focused on the dogs she could help may be a better view. Apparently she never considered that you could have been leading her into a trap, once she had confirmed that the PRT was shooting dogs in Texas."
"She seemed very angry when she found that out, and I had to emphasise that with her help the PRT may not need to continue doing so."
"The three makeshift dog shelters that we are collecting dogs from for her would indicate that she may be able to pull that off, though once she has collected the dogs in Texas I don't know what the PRT will do with them."
"Maybe teach her how the PRT or other law enforcement would like them trained so they can be used elsewhere? Or maybe train some to be helper dogs? Just explain how the training will help the dogs find homes elsewhere first, I think. Because she probably needs to see it as good for the dogs before she will consider it."
"That is probably a very good idea, and likely would have come up eventually. We haven't had much time to think about it, after all. I personally only met her a little over an hour ago, and that was only for a few minutes."
Taylor looked over at the door. "So, is there anything else, or should we let Missy in?"
"No, I think that is all." Miss Militia then got up and let Missy into the room. With Missy, however, were two others. They appeared to be doctors or nurses, Taylor wasn't sure which. "Ahh, good, everyone is here." The door was closed and locked again before Miss Militia
continued. "Now then, Miss Hebert and Miss Biron, one of the things that we will do before we allow you to use the tasers is to have you experience what it is like to be hit by one. To that end we have medical professionals on hand, just in case."
Taylor and Missy both blinked at that, then looked at each other.
Taylor shrugged, and Missy got a determined look on her face.
"We actually have two kinds of tasers," Miss Militia continued,
opening up the case she had wheeled in with her. Inside were two rows of tasers, each row identical but obviously two different models.
She took one out of the upper row first. "This is the non-tinkertech taser that uses single-shot cartridges and connects to the target with wires. It is the most likely kind you would run into on the street." She replaced that one in the case and removed one from the bottom row.
"And this is a tinkertech wireless taser. It uses ionized air pathways to connect to the target and can disrupt technology as well." She then replaced that in the case and picked up some pamphlets, which were split between Taylor and Missy.
Over the next hour Miss Militia covered safety and basic usage of both forms of taser. Afterwards Taylor and Missy were asked which of them wanted to go first. Missy volunteered before Taylor could say anything and after being set up with precautionary measures took a shot from the standard taser. While she was recovering, including being looked over by the medical professionals, Taylor was prepared.
"Ready?" Miss Militia asked. Missy was looking on with interest,
wondering how Taylor would fare.
"Ready," Taylor replied. Miss Militia fired the taser, and Taylor flinched. She then blinked. "Um, did something go wrong?"
Miss Militia checked where the taser had struck Taylor. "It looks like the probes did not penetrate your skin."
"Huh," Taylor mumbled, taking one of the probes. She tried to push it into her arm and it just bent. "Apparently I am accidentally immune to normal tasers?"
Missy glared a little at Taylor, but not too badly. Taylor volunteered to be the first one hit with the wireless taser, to give Missy more time to recover from the traditional one. Miss Militia switched tasers, then took aim. Once she had fired Taylor flinched.
"That stings quite a bit," Taylor admitted. "But I still think something isn't quite working."
"Your upgrades have probably made you resistant," Miss Militia offered. "That stinging is probably what you would feel if the conventional taser had worked as well."
Taylor shrugged, Missy glared, and they got on with things. Missy admitted that the wireless taser was less painful, but only because there weren't two pieces of metal jammed into her skin. After that they spent another hour actually using the two kinds of taser against dummies. Luckily for the two of them both kinds of taser were relatively short range weapons, so aiming wasn't too difficult.
Miss Militia declared that the two of them had passed the course and would get their certificates in the mail. She instructed them to get lunch and then return for the containment foam lesson, which she would also be giving. They were instructed to bring the spare clothing they had with them as well, though both girls had brought their bags with the change of clothing to the taser lesson anyway.
"Welcome back," Miss Militia said as she locked the door a little over an hour later. A new, larger case had been wheeled into the room.
"You two are getting the basic containment foam lesson, which does not include the use of sprayers. Vehicle mounted or otherwise,
though you will get to see one in use. You two are out of costume both because you wear armored costumes that would have interfered with the operation of the tasers and because containment
foam creates a horrible mess. As part of this the two of you will be getting exposed to containment foam, both because we want you to know what you are putting your targets through and to hopefully ensure that you don't panic if you happen to get caught in it in the field."
Taylor and Missy both nodded at that, and then the safety and usage lecture began. This included details about how quickly the containment foam would degrade naturally, basics on the usage of the solvent, and a number of other things. Significant focus was put on ensuring that the PRT knew of any use of the foam as it was possible to die due to a lack of water while trapped. As such the PRT had to check every time the foam was used in case unexpected bystanders, pets, etc were caught.
Eventually they reached the point where they would be getting foamed. This time Taylor went first. Miss Militia used a sprayer to cover her in sufficient foam, and Taylor found it was very sticky. It expanded and hardened and Taylor found herself trapped, but able to breath just fine. After five minutes the solvent was applied and Taylor decided that her previous post-gym state did not warrant a shower after all. Not compared to post-containment foam anyway.
Missy then got her turn, coated in the foam. But after the foam had hardened it started to peel away from her, creating a small gap in front of her. She tried to move out through the new gap, but failed and allowed the foam to cover her again as she pouted. Miss Militia raised an eyebrow at that, but applied the solvent anyway.
"I am curious as to what you tried to accomplish," Miss Militia asked after Missy was freed.
Missy grimaced as she looked down at herself, then answered. "I was hoping I could free myself with my power once the foam stopped being sticky, feeling for the air gaps in the foam in front of me, but I think I would have had to leave my clothing behind. And maybe some of my hair. If I could figure out how to accomplish both."
"Your power is an example of a general type of ability that was evaluated in the design process. That is one of the reasons the foam seems to get everywhere, to hopefully ensure that something you can't slip out of is trapped well enough to trap you."
Missy groaned at that, but admitted it made sense. They then spent a couple of hours learning the intricacies of the containment foam grenades, including the various types of detonation triggers and the spray patterns available. This included trying them out on a group of props and dummies at the end of the room, which necessitated some practice with inert grenades to learn how to throw them to get a desired placement. That would, of course, drastically improve with practice over time.
And, of course, they would get these certificates in the mail too.
Taylor and Missy were both feeling much, much, much better after having showered and changed into their other clothing in the locker room near the training room. The clothing they had been wearing had been eagerly relegated to the trash bin.
Miss Militia had asked that they meet back in the Wards area once they were changed, so the two headed in that direction. Once there they found that a general meeting appeared to have been called by Miss Militia. Taylor figured that she had probably excluded the two from the notice so they wouldn't rush.
"Good, you two are here," Miss Militia said, gesturing for them to take a seat. "No need to get into costume right now."
Taylor and Missy sat next to each other on the empty couch,
wondering what this was about.
"Now then, on Sunday there will be a press conference covering actions taken just before the Endbringer attack," Miss Militia said. "In addition to the normal acknowledgement of the capes that directly participated there will be acknowledgement of those that made the
operation as successful as it was. In this case that would be the work of Armsmaster, Kid Win, and Maul."
The other Wards, excluding Missy, were visibly startled by that.
Carlos, however, was the first to recover. "How did Chris and Taylor help?"
Miss Militia obviously smiled, even if they couldn't see the lower half of her face. "They worked with Armsmaster to create a new tinkertech device that was of significant help. Details beyond that are currently above your clearance levels. Part of the reason you are all being informed of this, instead of just Chris and Taylor, is that we are taking the opportunity to introduce Maul as the new Ward. As such everyone is expected to attend if at all possible."
They spent around an hour and a quarter talking about how this was to be handled, a good portion of that being how Taylor was expected to act. It might have only been half an hour, but Taylor had rightfully asked if this was the expected hero introduction and if that differed because she was an anti-hero. The resulting check of regulations had them needing to scrap a number of their original plans, but they came up with something simple that they were happy with anyway.
Well, Dennis wasn't happy, but only because he had needed to follow the hero rules when he was introduced.
Taylor had arrived home and decided to ensure her school materials were all set for Monday. It took her about five minutes, because she had forgotten that she hadn't had any homework to do so they were all still in her backpack. With that taken care of she plopped down into her desk chair and poked around online.
She was interrupted from reading some of the responses to her Maul post that morning by the ringing of the doorbell. Curious, and because it would be rude not to, she headed downstairs and checked, finding a rental truck in the driveway with two generic delivery men waiting on the porch. Just in case she grabbed the
baseball bat that was left in the hallway for her, then opened the door.
"Hello," Taylor said. "Can I help you?"
"We have a delivery of a home entertainment system and a single-
room comfort system for Taylor Hebert," one of the men said, looking
down at his paperwork and then back up at Taylor. "Where would you like the packages left?"
Taylor blinked at that, and then grinned. She hadn't been expecting both, but who was she to complain? "Let me open the garage, they are probably best left there." Putting action to words she moved through to the door leading to the garage, hitting the open button from the inside. At some point they might want to get a remote opener, now that she thought of it, given that she had to get off the moped to open the door with the code panel on the outside before she could pull in, assuming she didn't just slip through the regular door instead. Which still required her to get off the moped.
The delivery men, who Taylor thought were likely actually PRT officers, unloaded a small pile of boxes. Blinking at that, Taylor wondered why she thought that a home theater system would come in one big box. The "single-room comfort system" was three boxes as well, for that matter.
Once everything was unloaded Taylor closed the garage door and looked for the instructions for either of the two. Finding both sets she then checked to see which was more complicated to set up. She quickly determined that the home theater would probably require an electrician to do right and moved to the single-room comfort system.
Deciding it was within her abilities to install she moved the boxes for it up to her room before grabbing the toolbox from the basement.
Danny arrived home to find Taylor working in her room. Apparently she had replaced her ceiling light with a new... something? The wall
switch had been removed and had a control unit installed instead.
There were also new items attached to the upper corners of the room. The ladder and toolbox off to the side told him that she had likely done all of this herself.
"Did you at least turn off the circuit breaker before you started on all of this?" Danny asked, startling Taylor from where she was poking at what looked to be the final component of the system and the likely primary control box. Which was plugged into her tablet, for some reason.
"Oh, hi Dad," Taylor said. "And yes, I turned off the breaker and worked with a portable light while I replaced the ceiling light and wall switch. The ceiling unit somehow powers the corner units, so I just had to attach them with the provided mounting brackets. And the control unit here gets plugged into the wall, I was just getting it synced up to the other components." She was a bit bummed that it couldn't be controlled with Bluetooth, but didn't bother mentioning that. She would just have to stick the main control unit next to her bed or something.
"So what is this contraption?"
"A single-room comfort system." Taylor poked at the control unit and the ceiling unit's light went out as the corner units lit up with a more diffused light. "It apparently covers lighting, temperature, humidity,
and even blocks ambient sound without making it impossible to hear someone yelling for you. Still not sure how that last part is supposed to work, but tinkers, right?"
Danny just shook his head. "Is this something you purchased from the PRT store?"
"No, they cost about fifteen grand normally," Taylor admitted. Danny went wide-eyed. "Can't give you details, but it was an added reward after Monday. The home theater system still in the garage was included."
Danny blinked at that. "I think I will go take a look at that. Because until I see it I don't think I am going to believe you. But why would these be added rewards instead of providing you money like they already had?"
"These were confiscated from a villain and I got an opportunity to pick from their stock."
Danny sighed and headed back downstairs. He wasn't quite used enough to the insanity that had become their life since Taylor triggered. Taking a quick look in the garage he saw the home theater system, and the open instructions. After taking a quick look he guessed Taylor had skipped installing it due to the need to run wires,
so he would probably need to do something about getting one of the electricians from the union in to help.
Saturday morning Taylor once again used the gym before heading into the Wards area to hunt for donuts. One difference being that Missy had joined her in the gym. Another difference being that they found muffins instead of donuts today.
"It isn't fair how much more strength and endurance you have,"
Missy complained.
"Tinker fugue," Taylor responded, rolling her eyes. She then took another bite of her muffin.
"Yes yes, I know bullshit happened. Still jealous."
The two of them sat in silence, focusing on eating their muffins for a few minutes. After they had finished they split up to change into costume, which was requested for today's classes. Once in full costume they made their way to this morning's training room,
meeting up with a PRT instructor to start learning about handling knives properly.
Come lunchtime Taylor and Missy had returned to the Wards common area. Their first lesson was over, but they had more that would be scheduled later. They made their way straight to the pizza,
grabbing several slices each. Dennis was eating a slice of his own,
but he stopped to stare at Missy.
"Why do you have a bandaid on your cheek?" Dennis asked.
"Knife accident," Missy responded. Dennis raised an eyebrow, but Missy didn't volunteer anything more. She did not want to admit that she had tripped and fallen while showing her boot-knife to the instructor.
Taylor was also being silent on the issue. In part because she might have been partially responsible for Missy tripping. Mostly she was poking through the various questions Lisa and Brian had sent her regarding joining the Wards. Brian was concerned about where he would be posted, and Taylor was able to tell him that he could request to be wherever his sister was, even if she was moved out of Brockton Bay. Lisa had wanted to know how likely it was that she would end up in the fabled 'Protectorate Think Tank', made up of a large number of thinkers that worked on various problems.
Some digging had been required, but Taylor had eventually figured out that the answer was 'eventually quite likely if she wanted to be,
but not right away'. They didn't accept former villains without a probation period or extremely extenuating circumstances in the first place, and they didn't accept Wards-age parahumans at all. As such Lisa would need to be assigned somewhere else for a bit, and if she wanted to she could apply to join the think tank later.
Taylor hadn't heard from Alec at all. Which, to be fair, matched what she knew of him quite well. Rachel, on the other hand, was in the PRT building. Taylor honestly didn't expect to hear from her at all,
because Taylor didn't think her thought processes worked that way.
Eventually it was time for Taylor and Missy to head to their first Firearms class. Dennis made to follow them as they cleaned up in
the kitchen, obviously curious as to what they were up to. Taylor grinned at Missy from behind Dennis and motioned to the personal rooms hallway, then to her left wrist. Missy did her best to not grin,
because she didn't want to give anything away to Dennis.
"Missy and I just need to grab a couple of things we stored in our rooms this morning," Taylor said, heading passed Dennis and towards her room. Missy following behind her. Dennis grumbled, but waited in the common area for them.
By the time he moved to see what was taking them so long they had slipped out the secret back door and were halfway to the PRT indoor firing range. Both of them giggling.
Taylor and Missy had spent three hours getting safety lectures.
General safety, safety for each of the firearms they would be learning, more general safety, ammunition safety, firearm storage safety. They had not, in fact, been allowed to so much as touch a gun. The only reason they were in the firing range was so they could get a safety lecture for it as well.
In a few days, exact date yet to be determined, they would have another series of lectures on the operation of a number of things and, if they were lucky, the basics of how to safely use the firearms themselves. They would not be handed live firearms until after their instructor(s) were happy that they would treat them correctly, and initially they would only be allowed live firearms under the direct supervision of one of their instructors in the firing range itself.
With any luck they would only need a couple weeks of sessions, but they had no guarantee either way. Because until they could hit what they wanted to hit and not hit what they didn't they weren't going to pass.
On their way back from their class Taylor had noticed that Dennis was in the common area, potentially waiting for them.
"Want to sneak back in through the back door to confuse Dennis?"
Taylor asked Missy.
"Is he still waiting for us?" Missy asked.
"I think he moved a chair so he could watch the door."
Missy just grinned and they shifted their course. A few minutes later they had slipped in through the back door and into their rooms. Since they were done for the day they changed into their civilian clothing.
Taylor had noticed that Dean was also around, but figured he wouldn't care what they were up to right now.
Taylor and Missy then met up in the hallway and debated leaving past Dennis, or sneaking back out the back way. They decided that Dennis would probably be more annoying if they left past him, so they snuck out the back.
Dean, on the other hand, was more perceptive than Taylor expected.
He sent both of them a message as they made their way through the building, letting them know that Dennis was already very curious and was going to be very confused when he found out the two had already left. Taylor retorted with "Then maybe he will get around to asking the right questions" as she and Missy giggled.
Last edited: Mar 16, 2020
Chapter 28 Sunday morning Taylor had swung by the PRT bright and early. She skipped the gym today in favor of preparing for the press conference.
Part of this was scoping out a couple of points for her entrance, and she wanted to do so before anyone actually bothered to show up early. Luckily for her they weren't expecting a new Ward announcement as that was being sprung on them as an extra.
Today's press conference was being held in front of the PRT building, off to the side of the main entrance, as the weather was ok and weekend press conferences tended to have greater attendance rates. The stage had already been set up and a group of technicians was making sure the sound equipment was functional. The single microphone on the podium was connected to the overall system,
which had hookups off to the side for the press to attach to when they showed up to prepare as well as to the actual sound system.
Those participating in the press conference could also use their phones and relevant Bluetooth accessories to tap into the audio,
similar to if they were using the radio normally. They just had to be shifted to the 'press conference' channel for the duration. The plan included having Taylor take advantage of that, especially as she didn't need to put her hand to her ear to trigger talk mode.
She had been a bit surprised at the various things an anti-hero was supposed to do when being introduced. Some were recommendations, others were requirements. It was recommended she use her power, for example, but required that she be disrespectful in some way to 'drive home' the fact that she wasn't a conformist.
She had not missed that she was supposed to show she was nonconformist by conforming to the rules that stated she should do so.
Part of that was a requirement to appear to be late, 'making an entrance' on arrival instead of heroes that were usually on stage already. To make 'entrances' easier the stages, the permanent indoor one and the temporary outdoor one, had a number of hidden trap doors that opened in various ways, as well as discreet vents to allow smoke to billow out through to disguise what was happening.
The indoor stage had hidden access points to drop onto it from the walls and ceiling as well while the outdoor stage had specially reinforced areas for landings.
Amusingly, to comply with some of this the press conference room was one of the only rooms in the entire PRT building required to have double hinged swinging doors. Because slamming doors open on your way through is a common way to make a showy entrance or exit. Most people assumed it was because of the aesthetic of the room for the cameras, not for showmanship. Of course, that didn't help outside, but there were lots of ways to drop in on a press conference 'rudely' outside. The PRT had a list available, in fact, in case your power didn't provide you with a useful one.
Despite all of that she still wasn't allowed to do anything that might cause actual harm to anyone, barring an actual attack on the proceedings changing it to a battle. Damage to the PRT building or the general surroundings was discouraged, but not specifically disallowed. Probably because one reason a parahuman might brand as anti-hero was powers that damaged the surroundings just by being used.
Most amusing, however, were Battery's 'local additions'. Because according to her, if Taylor had to hit someone the preferred targets were Assault and Clockblocker. And if either of them made an inappropriate comment anyone else present should have permission to hit them, regardless of branding. Or even being a parahuman.
Having scoped out what she needed to left Taylor waiting for the actual press conference. The other Wards hadn't shown up yet, so Taylor figured heading down to the junkyard could be fun. She found
that her 'castle' was still there, as was the 'throne'. The pile of wood torn from the desks was missing, but there was more office furniture stacked up.
It looked like perfectly serviceable office furniture, so she wasn't sure
why it was in here. On the other hand, there were several spinny-
chairs. Which gave her an idea. She started pulling desks off of the
stack and setting them up to form a circle. On top of that circle she put a second one, plenty of gaps between things. And on top of the last she put a series of the two-drawer filing cabinets.
In the center of this ring she had a sturdy-looking spinny-chair.
Which, after she put a notice on the door that entering might be dangerous, she sat in and started figuring out the best way to get up to speed. It took her a bit, but she came up with a good solution.
Having done so she pulled her maul out and spun up to speed.
Once up to speed she threw her maul out to the side, applying her power to it at the same time. The sudden change in the center of mass on the chair caused it to swing outward, the wheels on it allowing her to momentarily circle a spot on the floor before the weight distribution caused her to topple over. The chair flew off to one side, Taylor fell to the ground, and the desks she had hit with her power were severely dented and knocked out of position, triggering a collapse where they had been in the circle.
Laying there for a couple of minutes Taylor considered where she had gone wrong, then got up and re-built the couple of sections of her circle that had collapsed. Standing in the middle this time she started spinning, her maul held out in front of her as she sped up,
ending up spinning faster than she had been in the chair. Once she felt she couldn't go much faster she applied her power to the maul.
This time she kept spinning, the repeated hits on all of the desks around her making a horrible racket as they were generally driven away from her. Bits of desk and filing cabinet flying off as her power repeatedly pummeled them. Suddenly the lights flickered and Taylor slowed down, releasing her power, and looked at the destruction she
had wrought, both from the direct hits of her power against the furniture and from the furniture flying off. Huh, looked like they might need to repair the walls. Which might have something to do with the lights flickering, given that she saw some sparks in one of them.
Oops?
The technicians she had summoned to look at the damage, given that sparks meant that someone probably had to cut power somewhere, had been impressed. She had successfully damaged three different points in the room that had weaker than normal armoring, two of which had been covering power lines and should have been more armored than normal. Then they had looked at the security camera footage and been impressed in a different way as she had whacked most of the wall sections multiple times, so it was more of a brute-force damage thing than precision strikes.
They had then had her move some of the debris out of the way before kicking her out of the room so they could work. Which left her with nothing to do. Damnit.
Missy had come in and found Taylor on one of the couches playing a pinball game on the monitor. While sitting upside down, jacket and visor off, and apparently not touching the keyboard. With a little more observation she determined that the monitor was mirroring a phone.
"Hi Missy," Taylor called. "How are you today?"
"Probably nowhere near as bored as you," Missy replied. "Why are you playing pinball upside-down?"
"Because I was kicked out of the junkyard after I damaged the walls and the wiring inside of them and nothing else seemed worth doing?
I thought about hitting the gym, but decided I wasn't in the mood.
And most of the remaining fun things in the building are really only fun with someone else around."
"Well, a crowd has started to form out there. I expect that Carlos,
Chris, and Dennis are going to have some issues getting in."
"I think Dean is approaching, so perhaps the three of us can laugh at them together until it is time for the last meeting before the press conference."
Missy chuckled as she headed off to get changed. Taylor kept tabs on Dean's progress, but Missy came back out and flopped down on the couch before Dean had made it all the way in.
"How far out is Dean?" Missy asked after a few minutes.
"I believe he is parking now," Taylor responded. She then frowned as she lost her last ball. "I suppose I should stop playing games."
Taylor flopped off of the couch in a roll of sorts before getting up and turning the monitor off, putting her visor back on and fixing her hair.
She then slipped her jacket on, before turning to Missy. "Do we think food is going to be provided at the meeting?"
"Probably not much, so grabbing lunch before it is recommended,"
Missy said, tapping her chin. "Maybe we should grab Dean to get lunch first? But he can't easily eat in costume due to the helmet."
"Which seems quite short-sighted. Then again, with just the visor we have to deal with our hair helping people identify us, so I guess there are benefits to the helmets. Especially since as far as I can tell nobody knows what color hair Aegis, Clockblocker, or Gallant have."
"Well, there is also the benefit of others imitating us. Muddies the water a bit when you could just have the same hairstyle as the Ward because you are imitating them."
Dean wandered in as Missy was saying that and chuckled. "Hello you two, and the number of kids Missy's age with a 'Vista' hairstyle was amusing a couple years ago."
"Hello Dean," Taylor and Missy chorused, before looking at each other and giggling.
"Why were you talking about visible hair?" Dean asked.
"You can't eat in your helmet," Taylor answered. "But are hiding more of your body so you are harder to identify, even if the cape fiction writers have picked up on other things thanks to Vicky."
Dean started to deliver a retort, before stopping to think for a moment. Finally he shook his head. "Damnit, you are probably right about Vicky. Though recently Armsmaster added in the ability to take part of my helmet off, ostensibly in case of air circulator failure. But it should work fine for eating too."
"Want to costume up and join us for lunch then?" Missy asked,
grinning. "We can chat about all the trouble the others are likely having due to the crowd forming outside."
Dean snickered and went to change.
The three of them had made their way to one of the cafeterias in the upper half of the building, specifically the section where PRT personnel who may not be cleared for the Wards worked. Mainly because they had decided the chicken specials sounded better than the pizza they were running downstairs and the ground level cafeteria had been made available for the press to get coffee from.
Dean had demonstrated that thanks to Armsmaster he really could eat with the helmet on due to the removable panel that uncovered his nose and mouth. As they ate the conversation was light, only really picking up once everyone had finished. They didn't have much else to do yet and apparently had mutually, but silently, agreed that they didn't feel like getting up.
"Did you know that I had to tell Clockblocker that the two of you had already left yesterday?" Dean asked.
"How long did he wait for us after he assumed we slipped past him?"
Missy asked, smirking a little.
"I told him you two had gone home on my way out, and he was the only other one around."
Taylor shook her head. "Think any of the three will start asking questions, or should we start being more blatant about things? I mean, so far we have been mostly hiding what we are doing and all."
"And how blatant do we want to be?" Missy asked. "You were pretty blatant with me, but I don't think we should make it that easy on them."
"I think that is going to depend on the situation," Dean mused. "Most days they don't have much trouble. But not telling them is making me feel guilty about hiding it from them."
"Think we should let them in via one of the easy ways today?" Taylor asked. The other two stared at her, wonder why she was asking out of the blue. "I mean, Clockblocker just sent me a message. 'So,
bullshit girl, got a real secret way in for us? No pickup available.' I think they are having issues."
"Send them to the ice cream parlor," Dean said, taking a moment to re-attach the piece of his helmet. "I'll go pop the door for them from the inside, then hopefully they ask one of the right questions for one of the two of you to give them the information."
Dean headed in the proper direction, dropping his tray off on the way by. Taylor and Missy snickered a bit but followed, breaking off towards the Wards area when they hit the right junction. They figured the show might be good.
Carlos, Chris, and Dennis followed Dean into the common area,
finding that Taylor and Missy were waiting for them on stools pulled from the kitchen. All three looked very confused and mildly annoyed.
"You weren't kidding about the gym either, were you?" Carlos asked.
"Or the moped comments, for that matter, given that Dean has started indicating that he drove in."
Taylor and Missy just grinned, causing the three boys to groan. Dean had moved behind them, and noticed Taylor had slipped a pamphlet out of her sleeve behind her back. He took it from her, grinning behind his helmet.
"So how do we learn how to use the secret entrances?" Chris asked.
"Since the three of you obviously have."
Taylor and Missy looked at each other, then produced a pamphlet each. Taylor from an inside pocket of her jacket and Missy from her utility belt. Dean held up the one he had just obtained from Taylor.
Each of them held their pamphlet out for the other three to take.
"Once you have read these," Missy said, having won the earlier rock-
papers-scissors contest with Taylor. "You should sign up for the
access keys class. Since the class we are required to take is how to get in without access keys and all."
All three took a pamphlet, read the front, and facepalmed. Nearly in sync, causing the other three to snicker at the image. Taylor wondered if they realized that her body camera might be recording?
There was much grumbling as the three went off to change and read the pamphlets. Taylor quickly hooked up her body camera to her Maul phone and downloaded the clip, figuring it would be amusing to share with others. Even if she had to limit who was allowed to see it.
Amy might get a kick out of it, though.
Taylor sat on the roof, waiting for the press conference to begin below. The pre-meeting had been boring, going over a lot of things they already knew.
They would start with what had happened with Coil, which amounted to "he had a base rigged to explode in the financial district, and using tinkertech we were able to disarm the entire thing before going in and arresting everyone" coupled with "we found out that he had been manipulating parahumans into working for him covertly", which was supposed to take nearly half an hour total due to the details to be provided. That would then be followed by a quick thanks to the protectorate members that helped with the assault on his base.
Then, because Wards had assisted, they would be thanked. They would start with Kid Win, and then drop the 'and our newest Ward,
Maul' bombshell.
At that point Taylor would literally jump off the roof to land on the stage, thanks to the jump harness, and deliver an insult to Director Piggot. Assault or Clockblocker would make an insulting quip of some kind in response, prompting Taylor to hit them with her power applied to the foam bat. Taylor even had some bubble gum to chew to amp up the 'punk' image a bit further. This would then begin the question and answer session that normally accompanied a new Ward being introduced.
All of it, however, had to wait for the stupid press conference to start.
To waste time she was going over the various snarks in the area.
She had all the other Wards waiting to head out onto the stage, all of the participating protectorate members also waiting to head out onto the stage, Calvert/Coil in the holding cells, Rachel in the nearby apartment building, Brian and Lisa on the roof over there.
Taylor blinked, then peeked around the little hut on the PRT roof to take a look at the roof in question. Huh, Brian and Lisa were over there, with folding chairs. Out of costume. Shrugging, she want back to where she had been laying down. It was in the shade, after all.
Hello Inference Engine!
[Data]
Yes, I had noticed that Brian was with you. Looking to get the scoop on Coil?
[Agreement]
Do you think any of the remaining Undersiders will opt to join the Wards?
[Data]
Good to know.
"Console to Maul," came over Taylor's Maul phone. "Prepare to be connected to the press conference channel."
Taylor didn't get a chance to respond before a reconnect event occurred and her headset buttons reconfigured. The primary channel changed to the press conference channel, the secondary channel was the console, and the new tertiary channel was the Wards channel. Huh, she didn't recall any of the accessory equipment she had seen having a tertiary channel button.
She poked the 'Console' button, as they would still need to make it through the others. "Maul to Console, channel connection looks complete."
A moment later Taylor was interrupted again by her Maul phone ringing, the caller ID said it was Lisa, so she mentally poked the answer button.
"Hello," Taylor said. "Enjoying the rooftop?"
"Hi," Lisa replied. "Is my power telling you what we are up to again?"
"Somewhat? I knew you were on the rooftop before I talked to your power."
"So, you know where we are, but we don't know where you are. You willing to tell us?"
"Sure, why not. I'm on the PRT roof."
Lisa was silent for a moment, then Taylor heard what sounded like a facepalm. "I am seriously spacing out when it comes to you."
"So, did you want anything beyond wanting to know where I was?"
"Yea, I get the feeling that my power wants something, but it can't tell me what. But I also suspect you can tell me."
Taylor blinked at that. "Give me a moment."
Did you want Lisa to do something?
[Agreement]
Huh. But you have an unusually easy time telling Lisa things. Why not just tell her directly?
[Data]
Really? But you can tell me?
[Explanation]
The rules you were given say you can't tell your host or hosts a number of things, like how you want to be used. But I am not your host, so you can tell me all you want?
Taylor thought about that for a moment.
Shouldn't you have similar rules?
Agreement
So how are you bypassing them?
Data
Really? I bypassed them by having you connect to yourself when I triggered and nobody else was around?
Agreement
Taylor considered that for a moment. She had, upon triggering, found a loophole in her own powers. By accident. That was kinda cool.
"So," Taylor finally continued. "Your snark would like you to try and figure larger, more complicated systems out. Maybe lotteries, even if by law you can't play them yourself due to the nature of your thinker power. Alternatively, it would be happy to look at more parahumans,
to try and figure out their powers?"
"That makes sense," Lisa answered. "By the way, I am curious. Why 'snark'?"
If Broadcast Administrator tells you, can you tell Lisa?
[Agreement]
Data
[Intrigue]
"Ooooh," Lisa said, Taylor not having to say anything. "Huh.
Interesting. Thanks, that was starting to bother me."
Taylor noticed the Protectorate and Wards parahumans start moving.
"Looks like things are about to begin, so we should probably at least pretend to pay attention."
"Yea. I will likely talk to you later." Lisa hung up before Taylor could respond. Taylor shrugged and sat up. She would be able to hear everything over the radio app anyway, but felt she was less likely to actually fall asleep if she wasn't laying down.
Taylor was officially bored at the twenty minute mark of the press conference. They had stopped for initial questions after describing Coil's basic modus operandi and the resulting threat to the financial district, but hadn't gotten as many questions as expected there.
Which was odd, but Coil hadn't been all that well known to begin with so interest was low. That put them slightly ahead of schedule. They had then covered the raid and such, with Director Piggot just opening up to questions on the raid of the base and the likely aftermath for the district.
For her own amusement, Taylor had been switching between line of sight and area mode on her snark sense. Line of sight was, as expected, proving to be what she could see. Which meant, largely,
Lisa and Brian right now, unless she peered over the edge of the roof. She was currently positioned such that a reflection off of the windows nearby gave her sight on Chris, but wasn't able to 'see' his snark.
Switching back to area mode Taylor paused. None of the snarks in the area had been moving much during the entire conference, but now one was. She pushed her 'console' channel button. "Maul to Console, I see movement on Coil. Is this a known relocation?"
Taylor waited a minute, and got no response. She pushed the Wards channel button as a test. "Maul to Anyone, can you read me?"
Nothing. On a whim she pushed the press conference channel button. "Testing, one, two, three." She could tell that didn't work right away, as she didn't hear herself. Which meant that communications were down or compromised while everyone was occupied.
Looking at the path Coil was taking, Taylor determined he was likely heading for the ice cream parlor exit. Decisions, decisions. She tried to call Miss Militia and the call didn't connect, so comms were fairly well shot. Well, this was Coil, perhaps Lisa and Brian would like to help her. She poked Inference Engine as she jumped off the roof,
away from the press conference, in the general direction of the ice cream parlor.
Hey Inference Engine, Coil is making a break for it. Do Lisa and Brian want to help grab him?
A moment later Taylor felt Lisa and Brian start moving, so she took that as a yes.
Have them head to the ice cream parlor a couple blocks over.
[Agreement]
Thomas was very happy that his contingency plans had been more complete than his assumptions for who had been tailing him. One of his secretly loyal technicians had arranged for failures of several key systems at the same time, during the press conference talking about the fact they had captured him in the first place. He liked the poetry of escaping while they were bragging about his capture.
He was also quite pleased that in both timelines he was getting away with minimal issue this time, compared to the majority of attempts since he was captured. He had learned from the multitude of failures and waited for one of his uncaptured men to pave the way for him.
None of the parahumans were available to screw him up due to being at the press conference or out patrolling the city because of the press conference, and thanks to the sabotage of systems they shouldn't know he was gone for another hour at least. Luckily for him Brockton Bay had only one cape that should be able to detect him.
But even if Gallant could do so in theory, the sheer number of people around for the press conference should prevent him from accomplishing the task.
Thomas swore as he dropped the timeline had been using to head towards the secret gym exit. A patrolling security guard running behind schedule had spotted him. Splitting off another timeline he instead focused on getting out of the ice cream parlor exit, taking two different paths to get to the tunnel. He was almost there anyway, and from what his inside man had told him the guard patrol should be nowhere near him. As such the extra timeline was more for
insurance than anything else. Besides, the ice cream parlor was a more discreet exit, the gym would have required passing through the public gym to leave.
Both of him made it to the tunnel at about the same time. He made his way down the tunnel in one timeline while hiding in a nearby closet in the other, just in case. Unfortunately, just as he was stepping through the outside door a PRT officer showed up to store things in the closet he had hidden in, forcing him to drop that timeline. He was out anyway, so it was no big loss.
A moment later he regretted that decision as he doubled over in pain. He had assumed that the monitor above the door had been blacked out because of the system sabotage. It would take him a while to realize he had been fooled by Grue's darkness, at least once he woke up after being struck in the back of the head.
Taylor looked down at Coil, curled into a fetal position even after being knocked unconscious.
So, I thought you were having fun showing him all the ways things could go wrong?
[Exposition]
Oh. This is one of those, but he didn't keep a safe timeline where he stayed in his cell this time. Huh. I guess you figured he couldn't sneak out anyway if I was close enough?
[Agreement]
Taylor tried to re-open the door that had closed behind Coil, only to find that the reader wasn't working.
"Did you have to nail him between the legs?" Brian asked, sounding like he was in sympathetic pain as he handed the collapsible baton
he had borrowed back to Taylor. "I really don't want to feel sorry for him."
"It left him wide open for your follow-up, didn't it?" Taylor retorted as she pulled a couple of zip-cuffs out of her utility belt. After a moment she decided to be nice and slap a spare domino mask on him too.
"Thanks for blacking out the camera, though."
"Thank Lisa, she pointed out where I needed to cover. At least now I have a slightly better idea why she generally had us avoid this alley in the past, though."
"Yes, her snark is bullshit, isn't it."
"You two done yet?" Lisa called from the end of the alley. "They finally finished my order!"
Five minutes later Brian and Lisa were nearly back onto the roof they had been watching from and Taylor was approaching the PRT building from the rear. Taylor noted that her cue to appear was just coming up and grinned. She wouldn't be able to get up to the roof,
but she figured that would be ok.
"Finally, I would like to thank an individual who was essential in revealing Coil's existence to us and neutralizing the threat his base posed," Director Piggot said, turning as though to introduce someone behind her. "Our newest Ward, Maul!" After a moment she, as previously planned, put an annoyed look on her face. Which wasn't feigned too much, as this entire ruse was annoying. "Assuming, of course, she is here like she is supposed to be." The other parahumans on stage made to look around, as planned.
A moment later Taylor jumped in from the side, instead of from the roof. Carrying a body, both of which were not in the plans.
"Sorry, am I late?" Taylor asked, before blowing a bubble with her bubble gum. "I was kinda distracted by Coil here trying to escape. I'd
have called ahead, but, well, comms appear to be down. And I couldn't open any of the secure doors I am supposed to be able to drop people off at either."
Armsmaster visibly reacted in shock to that, rushing into the building a moment later. Assault and Battery made their way over to Taylor to take Coil from her. The crowd was dead silent, probably to ensure they didn't miss anything given that Taylor couldn't broadcast over the press conference channel right now and wasn't at the microphone.
"What did you do to him?" Assault asked.
"Someone suggested I take the name 'Nut Shot'," Taylor grinned. "I demonstrated why the suggestion had been made, though I was kind enough to only do so with my boot."
Assault flinched. "Yea, not the best suggestion on my part."
Funnily enough, her post-introduction question and answer session covered exactly zero topics they had prepared for her to answer.
Showing up with the escaped Coil apparently trumped normal curiosity?
Chapter 29 Monday had been amusing, as three quarters of the school seemed incapable of talking about anything but Maul and who she might be.
And the few times Taylor was proposed it was shot down as ridiculous, usually having been suggested as a joke in the first place.
Which was funny in ways those people obviously didn't realize. Of course, there were those trying to decide what kinds of powers she would have if she did trigger. Like the group that figured she would probably get something weird like controlling bugs. Taylor didn't get the logic or the appeal there.
Lisa had been in touch as school was getting out, but Taylor had to put off bringing the three Undersiders in for a meeting. The Wards weren't even operating right now due to the massive security issues uncovered by Coil's escape attempt. Until they could be certain that communications in particular weren't going to go down only the full Protectorate members would be patrolling, and the PRT didn't want visitors until they fixed the security system that had been taken offline.
One thing that did come out of that conversation was at least some of why Taylor's secret seemed to be so iron-clad, at least from Lisa's point of view. The idea that the incredibly respected Jacob would allow his niece to trigger or, if she did, ride a wrecking ball was seen as ridiculous. If only they knew the other name her uncle went by. Or had heard some of the stories Taylor had, for that matter.
Taylor spent most of Monday afternoon puttering around the house,
not sure what else to do. Amy was at the hospital, the secret gym was technically open, but inaccessible due to the access keys system still being offline. Further, as part of the fix they had initiated a temporary local lockout of the secure gateway for the PRT information app, keeping her from looking for more amusing things there. The internet was also failing to amuse her, beyond a few
minutes of stirring up trouble on PHO, and she didn't have any books she wanted to read.
Out of sheer boredom she grabbed the setup and usage instructions for the home theater. They weren't installing it until the weekend, or more accurately, her father and an electrician from the union were installing it this weekend. But knowing how things were supposed to work was good, right? Especially if she made sure she knew what the various warnings were for what not to do.
Tuesday turned out to be incredibly rainy, causing Taylor to take the bus to school. Thanks to her reading the night before she now knew a lot of things not to do with the home theater system, and thinking back on those this morning had spawned some ideas. Ideas she wasn't sure how to implement yet, but ideas. Her snark didn't think they would work, but Taylor figured she just needed to flesh them out more before it would understand.
The rumor mill was still running through Maul everything. Both PHO and the student body had started to ask about the name, since it had been accepted by the PRT and all. So far the general consensus was that they had no clue due to a distinct lack of mauling people and a distinct lack of hammer-like implements, but they hadn't really gotten going yet. Most amusing was that she had started the whole thing off last night by asking 'Why Maul?' as herself in the Maul discussion thread on PHO, followed by responding 'Why not Maul?'
as Maul an hour or so later. No explanation had been given, hence the current focus of coming up with one.
Notice was sent out during the day that access key functionality was available again and the PRT building generally available, so Taylor made her way over there after school. Chris ended up taking the same bus route Taylor had, and they both slipped in through the gym after Taylor offered to show Chris that way in.
"Looking to tinker?" Taylor asked as they entered the PRT hallway.
"Yep," Chris replied. "I didn't get much done over the weekend and then couldn't yesterday. Also, you suck for not telling us about this way in earlier."
"The in-joke of not telling Wards about that class wasn't my idea.
Just think, next new Ward we all get to openly wonder why they have so much trouble getting in unless they ask how we do it. Or we could be nice and decide that not telling them about the class after a couple of weeks is too mean." Taylor tapped her chin for a moment.
"Well, next uninformed new Ward, there is a chance some of our upcoming ones will have a clue already."
Chris raised an eyebrow at that, but as Taylor didn't volunteer any more he dropped the subject. "So, I know why I am here, what about you?"
"I was thinking I would swing by the junkyard and hit some things."
Chris looked at Taylor, opened his mouth as if to ask a question, then stopped. He closed his mouth and calmly pulled his phone back out.
A couple of searches later he swore under his breath. "An entire training room full of stuff we are allowed to destroy? Damnit. Had I known I wouldn't have been constantly looking to book the test-fire range. Mind if I join you?"
Taylor blinked. Huh, at one point she had thought that perhaps the junkyard would end up as her near-personal playroom. Apparently not. "Sure, I guess? Just try not to hit me."
Taylor and Chris had gotten into their costumes and headed down to the training room, bringing Chris's toolkit and some spare parts with
them. Chris had looked at the remaining bits of the school desk-
castle but had opted not to ask. Instead the two of them made a
game out of Taylor hitting things into the air with her power and Chris shooting them out of the air with his laser pistols. Occasionally Chris would stop to tweak the pistols, allowing Taylor to engage in some more mindless destruction in the meantime.
Eventually Chris discovered that he probably should have brought a way to recharge his pistols. Once they had run out of juice the two packed up and headed back to the Wards area.
"That was a lot more fun and useful than I thought this afternoon was going to be," Chris admitted as he took some of his equipment back from Taylor to put away. "Having moving targets is a rarity for me, so thanks for that."
"Just have to watch the potential ricochets better," Taylor grumbled.
She hadn't expected the blasts to ricochet off of some of the materials and three different times she was nearly hit by them. At least she knew that the blasts weren't 'solid' enough to deflect with her power now, regardless of the state of her mental switch for insubstantial interactions. That might be important later.
"Yes, well. Sorry about that."
"No problem. Gave me some unexpected dodging practice."
"I still think that was neat how you cut power to your harness to drop under that last one."
Taylor grinned, handed Chris the last bit of tech she was holding for him, and slipped into her own room to change back into her civilian clothing.
"So, any tips on how to expand my circle of friends?" Taylor asked as she and Chris made their way back towards the gym. "I kinda realized that my friends are pretty much all parahumans now when I was bored out of my mind yesterday."
"It can be hard when they don't know about your powers," Chris admitted. "We tend to gravitate towards those that we don't have to keep as many secrets from, if only because it is easier than making excuses."
"That is kinda depressing."
Chris shrugged. "Sometimes you get lucky and hit it off with people that you don't have trouble making friends with. I haven't really done so myself, but my urge to tinker makes it hard. Because you can talk to powers you might find that talking to people without powers feels wrong. Then there is the theory that people with powers, or that can get powers, are drawn to other people with powers on some level."
"Yea, I recall reading about that one. It was one of the theories for why a lot of parahumans tend to end up in groups of various kinds."
The two chatted about various theories on their way out and home until their paths diverged.
Wednesday afternoon Taylor made her way into the PRT building after school. Comms had been cleared that morning, so normal activities could generally resume. As such Taylor was going on her first officially scheduled patrol, which by a long-standing Brockton Bay tradition was a three-Ward patrol, intended to be 'two Wards on a patrol with a trainee'. Normally that would include the current Wards leader, but they didn't think that was all that important at this point. Besides, Carlos, Chris, and Dennis had ended up with the access keys class today.
Thus Maul joined Gallant and Vista on patrol through the boardwalk.
"Why are we going through the boardwalk?" Taylor asked, frowning.
"It isn't like I haven't wandered through it multiple times before, so it can't be for initial visibility."
"Probably because while they feel things are working well enough they aren't actually positive," Missy replied. "Safer to have us take one of the less dangerous routes, but still has us out and about."
Taylor had expected, and gotten, a boring patrol. Because she was officially on patrol she had to follow more guidelines, which meant no
bouncing around like an idiot with her jump harness. Didn't stop her from playing games on her phone via her visor when they were just walking, even if she did have to pause to pay attention whenever someone approached them.
The stroll through the boardwalk had resulted in Taylor being asked a lot of questions in short bursts as people got the courage to walk up to her. Because this wasn't PHO where people could see what was already asked the questions were somewhat repetitive. Not a single person asked about her name, which struck her as odd, but perhaps they figured she wouldn't answer? Eventually they reached the far end of the boardwalk and started back towards the PRT building through less-traveled paths.
Today that meant rooftops via Missy violating the crap out of spacetime. The amount of warping effects was reduced, though, as when possible she was playing with 'warp space without touching the matter'. It was apparently harder when compressing distances than when making things bigger on the inside.
Six blocks from the PRT building Taylor signed a stop.
Hello Inference Engine. Do the three humans want to intercept us?
[Agreement. Data]
"I think we need to hit ground level," Taylor said, gesturing ahead.
"We have non-hostile company ahead."
They are in costumes and brought all their stuff? Why?
[Data]
"How do you know they are non-hostile?" Dean asked, focusing on where Taylor had gestured. "Admittedly they feel highly annoyed?"
Squealer hit the warehouse and made it unsafe to stay in? That sucks.
[Agreement]
"They were evicted for health and safety reasons," Taylor said,
hopping off the side of the roof. Missy crunched space for her and Dean, so they were on the street before Taylor landed. "Squealer's adjustments to the building they had called home base were, shall we say, haphazard. Apparently."
"So what are we going to do?" Missy asked, relaxing a bit. Dean looked over at her, obviously having sensed that she wasn't worried.
"They are in costume, so check with them and probably call for pickup. They have all their stuff with them."
How did they get all their stuff here anyway?
[Data]
"Were they nearby?" Dean asked. "I mean, I don't recall Squealer doing anything around here lately?"
"They were owed a favor by a guy with a truck," Taylor answered,
shaking her head. "He helped them evac, but it took two trips."
The three came to the end of the alley, now around a couple of blocks from the PRT. In fact, the gym was on the next corner.
Looking down it they found three teenagers, in costume, sitting amongst a pile of stuff. Furniture included, the two boys sitting on the couch that had been left in the middle of the mess.
"You three took long enough," Lisa said, sitting in a computer chair and poking at a laptop. "I was starting to think I needed to call. We figured that since the PRT is partially responsible for us being out of a place to stay that they should help us out."
"And how did you come to the conclusion that the PRT has any responsibility?" Dean retorted. The disbelief was audible in his voice.
"Normally our teammate would have drawn Squealer away from our base with her dogs," Lisa replied. "But since she defected to the PRT to go help dogs in Texas we had no good way to redirect the fight away from us."
"That and I got sidelined from moving out of our base when you took down Coil," Brian added, frowning. "Supposedly he got an apartment for me, but the keys hadn't shown up yet."
Taylor and Missy shared a look, which was less effective with them both wearing visors, and Missy grinned at Taylor. Damnit, she was going to have to call it in, wasn't she? Oh well.
"Before you call anything in," Alec spoke up, obviously figuring that was coming. "I have a question based on something you told Grue here."
"Ok?" Missy said, gesturing for him to get on with it.
"If I want to request to, say, be as far south as possible, instead of just being protected from my family. Would that be allowed?"
"You know that Texas is an option," Taylor answered. "Several different cities, I think, actually. Tampa or Honolulu might work too?
They will, of course, want a reason beyond 'just because' but your concerns about your family would probably be enough."
Alec nodded. "Any chance you can break my, er, background to them? Somehow I think it will be better if you let them know what you know." Lisa and Brian looked at Alec, though Taylor could tell that Lisa was avoiding prying.
[Data]
I don't need to know any more than Lisa does!
Mainly because Inference Engine was using Taylor as a dumping ground for the information Lisa was avoiding asking it for. Damnit.
Still. "I can do that if it needs to be done in person, but I suspect you will primarily do so on forms. Shall I call for a pickup now?"
Alec gave a 'go ahead' gesture and went back to lounging. Brian and Lisa shrugged, apparently having nothing else to say for the moment either.
"Maul to Console," Taylor subvocalized. Huh, Lisa started paying attention again. "Need pickup at my location for three parahumans and their stuff, probably two or three vans worth."
The resulting discussion of why and Taylor admitting that 'Vista' had spoken with them previously as well took longer than desired, though Missy was kind enough to verify the story to speed things up. As such the entire group ended up riding back in the vans after helping load them. Missy had been of significant help by making it so that the floors of the vans were at ground level for the loading, even if she didn't actually move a whole lot herself.
Miss Militia and Dauntless were waiting for the group when the vans arrived in the secure parking area. All six costumed teenagers climbed out of the vans and stood in front of the two older parahumans, split into Wards and Undersiders.
"Maul, Vista," Miss Militia started. "Three recruitments at once is considered to be fairly impressive. Four for Maul if we consider your pre-introduction recruitment."
"Targets of opportunity," Taylor responded. "And really, they found me more than I found them."
"Now for the fun part," Miss Militia continued. "Maul, while Miss Lindt was wanted for investigation into her assumed trigger event and thus had to go through alternate application protocols, none of these three are known to be wanted. As such, as their primary recruiter,
you are responsible for helping with and filing their initial paperwork unless they have an objection to that."
Taylor blinked at that. "But my uncle just handed me the packet and told me to work through it? And I thought Wards didn't have the official clearance to help with joining paperwork?"
"Your uncle was also your primary contact if you had questions and he did the actual initial filing. And you, claiming you don't have clearance? I checked, you have every clearance I have that would apply in this situation, and probably a pile I am not even cleared to know about. I believe you will find the paperwork needed in conference room 4, so get to it."
Taylor grumbled a little as she queued up the map for getting to conference room 4, waving for the three Undersiders to follow her.
They were snickering at the entire thing.
The three Undersiders, or perhaps former Undersiders now, were making their way through the paperwork. Taylor had submitted the form that indicated that Lisa had figured out Jacob's cape identity,
but was leaving the overall Slaughterhouse Nine reveal or not decision to the Protectorate thinkers. Taylor was also answering most of Lisa's questions by informing her snark of things, before Lisa could ask the questions. Taylor was also looking up everything she had to do with these three, because she hadn't thought they would drop this on her while she was still a Ward.
All three had found that the most recent ENE region packet included the hero/anti-hero checklist and all the anti-hero forms. Alec had no problem with marking down anti-hero and filling out the forms for a proper rebranding, but Brian decided to go for keeping his existing
branding, hopefully with anti-hero rules. Lisa didn't qualify for anti-
hero branding but did want a rebranding to distance herself from her
villain career.
As each finished their paperwork Taylor had to read through their completed forms for problems. If she found any she pointed them out and set them to it. If they had no problems she would sign off as having checked and drop it in the tinkertech box. Lisa was the only one to make it through the entire set of forms without having Taylor need to hand them back to her at least once. Alec, on the other hand, required that Taylor fill out an extra couple of forms relating to the revelations about what his power wanted and his desire to be assigned to Tampa or Honolulu if at all possible. Brian had less concerns there as 'staying with family' was expected, and Lisa had figured she might as well stick around in Brockton Bay.
None of the three could sign for their adult representative, nor could Taylor even if she had been an adult. But all three did fill out the forms that indicated they didn't believe their parents and/or guardians were trustworthy and why. Once all the paperwork was in the box Taylor sealed it up, then had the other three follow her out of the room.
"Don't you need to bring the box with us?" Brian asked as the three followed Taylor. "Given that it has all our paperwork and all?"
"What box?" Taylor asked, having felt what she believed was a snark reaching into the room when they weren't looking. Tricky thing, she wondered if she would ever meet it properly.
The other three turned around to find that there was no longer a box there. Lisa flinched a couple of times. "I know that didn't have any ability to teleport, but it is most certainly not there anymore. What the hell?"
"I am told that they usually wait a bit longer than that to vanish,"
Taylor admitted. "But they seem to be more willing to vanish around me, provided I am not looking. I think whomever is responsible for them is teasing me, having noticed that I can tell when they come and go."
"So what now?" Brian asked. "Given that I assume the paperwork will take time to be processed?.
"Now I bring you to temporary lodging as it is too late in the day for most of the rest of the introductory work," Taylor answered. "Though Regent may be shipped off elsewhere before the training portions happen, so that he doesn't go through the Brockton Bay versions of things instead of whatever version they use where he ends up stationed. Branding for him will definitely wait as he is aiming for warmer climates."
"That and we probably have to wait for approval on the 'our parents suck' applications," Lisa added. "Because if those aren't approved they have to contact our parents, given that none of us are adults."
She didn't sound happy about that possibility.
The four of them made their way through the PRT building, aided by Taylor using the map app, to a visitor's quarters area that thad been prepared for them. There were four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a shared common area with a kitchen section that had been lightly stocked for them. Disconcertingly for them, each of them had one of their suitcases in the common area.
"As I understand it, someone will visit you in the morning to continue things," Taylor said. "Until then you will find that it is difficult to move around this area without an escort." Taylor paused, reading information from her phone, then turned around. "Ah, if you need help you can use the intercom next to the door to summon someone that can assist you. Any questions?"
"How the hell are our bags in here?" Brian asked, staring at them. "I thought that my bag ended up buried in a hard to reach spot."
"I am currently going to assume that when they unpacked the vans into storage they grabbed the three obvious travel bags," Taylor replied, shrugging. Lisa nodded, apparently agreeing with Taylor.
Lisa's snark hadn't even needed to say anything to either of them.
"Anything I might be able to help with?"
"I think we are good," Brian said, shaking his head as he grabbed his bag and claimed a bedroom. "Thanks for the help." Lisa pushed Alec towards the bedroom that shared a bathroom with Brian's before claiming one of the other two.
"No problem." Taylor waved to them and headed off. She had hoped to be home an hour ago, but still had to change back into civilian clothing before she could leave.
Thursday after a boring day at school Taylor had swung by the PRT building for her second knifework class. She reviewed the current status of the three recruits while waiting, including reading their power testing results from that morning, but there wasn't much there to find out beyond that the paperwork had been accepted and their snarks did what she already knew their snarks did. The knifework class itself went well enough, with neither student getting injured.
The instructor, however, learned to not startle Missy and had needed assistance getting to the on-site hospital.
Taylor wasn't sure if she should be happy or not that she hadn't gotten injured in the PRT building or in costume and thus hadn't spent time in the PRT hospital. It probably wasn't much better than Brockton General either way, but she got a good look in the process of dragging their instructor in.
After dropping their instructor off Taylor was dragged off to answer questions about the three new recruits. Luckily she had found that they had been removed from her overall responsibility after the paperwork due to needing an actual adult representative. No matter what her clearance levels were she wasn't an adult, so didn't qualify.
"Good afternoon Maul," Director Piggot said as Taylor entered the conference room. Miss Militia was also there, sitting next to the Director. "Please take a seat."
Taylor was nervous, but removed her jacket and sat down across from the other two. "I was told you had questions for me?"
"We do," the Director said. "In particular, the three new recruits. Their paperwork went through overnight and they went through power testing. Mister Laborn has no unexpected surprises and our initial checks into his sister's home life have already shown ample reason to intervene there, not to mention good reasoning behind him not staying at home either. However, both Miss Wilbourn and Alec have a number of things that were locked down in their files."
"I am not sure I should be revealing their secrets without their permission. In general as a courtesy and more specifically given the agreements I have signed."
Miss Militia pushed a couple of envelopes across the table. Both were labeled 'Maul' in different handwritings. Taylor opened them both, finding what appeared to be permission from both Lisa and Alec for Taylor to talk about their pasts to the other two at the table.
To be certain, however, Taylor reached out to Inference Engine, who was in her range though elsewhere in the building.
Hello. Did Lisa and Alec really give me permission to talk about their pasts?
[Agreement. Data]
Lazy asses. Has Lisa been locked in a room full of paperwork yet?
[Negative]
Tell her to look forward to it, then.
"Right, well, I suppose I will start with Lisa," Taylor said, leaning back. "I don't suppose you recognize the name Sarah Livsey?"
"Ran away from home a couple years ago," Miss Militia answered.
"Shortly after her brother committed suicide. Parents were arrested six months after she ran away when her mother admitted that Sarah had triggered and been forced to use her powers to benefit the family to the detriment of her own health and a general PRT alert
went out at that time to watch for her. Though both parents are out of prison custody rights were not returned to them."
Taylor blinked. Does Lisa know her parents were arrested and lost custody of her?
[Negative. Data]
Well, ok, yes, I can see why she knows now. Let her know that her parents are out of prison already too, would you?
[Agreement]
"I take it Miss Wilbourn and Miss Livsey are the same person?"
Director Piggot asked. Taylor nodded. "Well, that answers several questions I didn't know I wanted answered, as well as telling me why her background was restricted. I can only assume that her assumed identity has been bolstered by the D.C. office."
Taylor shrugged. "Don't know, haven't been kept up to date since the paperwork was filed. I now assume that Calvert found out about her from the PRT alert, and once he found her he pretty much forced her to work for him at gunpoint."
"I find myself glad that he has already been transferred out of the city, if only to keep myself from being tempted to go down to the holding cells to punch him."
"So, any specific questions about Lisa?"
"I have some, but I don't think you can answer them so I won't bother. I think we should move onto Alec, who refused to put a last name of any kind down and has less of a legal identity than Miss Wilbourn."
Taylor frowned. "I suspect that Alec's skills don't lend themselves to that and he probably didn't want to ask Lisa to help. He was born
Jean-Paul Vasil and escaped his father's influence, but not without some mental damage."
This time both of them shared a look and Director Piggot looked particularly worried. Taylor suspected she didn't need to go any further on that topic.
"That would explain the desire to head further south," Director Piggot finally said. "Away from Canada in particular. I am surprised he stopped here, but as a teenager he would have had issues moving around."
"Given his family I am less surprised that the details on his powers are more highly restricted," Miss Militia added. "Even so, there are indications that there are issues beyond the obvious with his powers?"
"As you should already know, he controls human nervous systems,"
Taylor answered. "His snark would prefer that he play with damaged nerves instead of always controlling healthy ones and wants him to occasionally puppet humans in their entirety. While I can see the former not being seen as too bad, the latter is likely a bigger problem."
"The rehabilitation center in Tampa is having issues with some patients," Director Piggot volunteered after some time to think. "It has come up in regional reports a couple of times recently as they look for potential tinker solutions. Perhaps he could be of help there, and as a 'backroom' task instead of a public one it would hide him quite well. It could very well mean he just vanishes, from the point of view of the public."
"Personally I think he would like that, as much as he is capable of liking anything with the emotional issues he has."
They spent another half hour discussing a couple of things Taylor could have done better with getting them through the paperwork before Taylor was dismissed. As she wasn't patrolling due to having
had the class earlier she had nothing else to do, she she decided she might as well head home.
Last edited: Nov 21, 2017
Chapter 30 On Friday Taylor's classes had spawned additional ideas, and she spent a good amount of time discussing possibilities with her snark.
She had come to the conclusion that things probably didn't work the exact way her snark thought they did when it came to snark-to-snark communication, because the way it was looking at it was too simplistic. Like it was using a higher-level interface that handled the lower-level pieces for it, similar to several blocks of 'wrapper' code they had looked at in her programming class. Or maybe it was closer to a pre-made hardware module that was plugged into a system?
Either way her snark was gradually deciding that Taylor was probably right, but it would probably be another day or two minimum before anything could be done about it. After all, her snark had to figure out how to access those lower level pieces now that Taylor had won it over to the possibility. Taylor also suspected that it had taken the opportunity to talk to Modular about some of it before agreeing, and that it might talk to Efficiency if Taylor was close enough to Armsmaster while it was working on it.
After school Taylor had patrol. Today's patrol was through the the docks area, though not far enough in where things would be too dangerous for Wards to approach. Carlos, who was patrolling with her, had explained that if they saw anything it was likely to be basic street-level stuff. Because Taylor shouldn't expect large groups of thugs every time she wandered into the docks.
"You, my friend, are absolutely correct," Taylor replied to that briefing statement. "I shouldn't expect large groups of thugs. I should expect Lung and Oni Lee, fighting the Merchants, with large groups of thugs on both sides, and the Empire approaching, before they all decide that we are the bigger threat and attack us en-masse. Then I can be pleasantly surprised when it is only a large group of thugs."
The other Wards had stared at her, before Dennis and Missy both gave a slow clap. In very creepy unison. Had they practiced that at some point?
"You just might be approaching properly pessimistic for this profession," Dean said, shaking his head. "Now you just need to get to properly prepared."
"I'm working on it," Taylor replied, grinning. She couldn't get at the Wards armory yet, but it was coming. Taylor also noted that Missy grinned with her. "Probably not paranoid enough, though, as I think I just taunted Murphy."
"What's next, you tell us you bet that the Slaughterhouse Nine or Leviathan are coming here next?" Dennis joked.
"Haven't used my Slaughterhouse voucher yet," Taylor admitted.
"But yes, I put Leviathan attacking Brockton Bay down with my Endbringer voucher."
This time the rest of the Wards just stared, before Chris spoke up.
"You do know that most people pick a region. Like, say, New England? Or maybe a state, like California, or a country, like Australia?"
"Though if she is right she is going to get one hell of a payout,"
Carlos countered. "Especially since anyone who merely bet 'New England' will lose out due to her more specific bet. And the chances of it being a split pot are pretty much nil at that point. I mean, who else is going to bet for the next target being Brockton Bay?"
"I figure it is a win-win situation," Taylor explained. "Either the attack is here and I win the bet, or the attack is elsewhere and we aren't attacked. I considered betting that the Slaughterhouse Nine would attack here next too, but decided that was pushing it."
Emily sneezed, looking around for the source of dust. Finding nothing she scowled, and went back to putting money down on the next Endbringer hitting Brockton Bay. And the Slaughterhouse Nine hitting Brockton Bay. She wasn't crazy enough to put money on the Ash Beast showing up, granted, but only because of the number of other things it would have to wander through first. Like the ocean.
She paused as she considered The Butcher, who was moving again.
All available indicators were pointing elsewhere though.
Screw it, she bet on the Teeth hitting Brockton Bay too, and added a side bet of Nilbog breaking free of Ellisburg and heading directly for Brockton Bay for good measure. A disaster would eventually hit them, after all. She was sure of it.
Taylor and Carlos had found the initial 'nothing much' prediction to be the more accurate one. They had scared off a few druggies, but that was about it. As such they had returned to the PRT building and were on their way to the Wards area.
"So," Carlos said, catching Taylor's attention. "Jacob said that you might be able to help me figure out what my power might want me to do?"
"Er," Taylor replied. "Gimme a minute to talk to it, ok?" Carlos nodded.
Hello! Is there anything you want Carlos to do with you?
[Agreement. Data]
Huh, that seems easy enough. Thanks.
[Gratitude]
"It looks like your snark wants you to play more with adapting by choice," Taylor said aloud. "Instead of only having it adapt things for you because you were injured? And possibly adapting in other ways,
it used the example of pushing to strengthen your bones and muscles before punching something so that it wouldn't have to adapt you on the fly for the damage."
Carlos went to say something, then stopped and facepalmed. "I can push for adrenaline rushes and faster healing, but I never thought to try and mitigate damage before I took it. Thanks, I now have something to work on."
"No problem."
The two of them made their way back to the Wards area, Carlos mumbling about possible ideas along the way. Taylor absently noted that Lisa and Brian appeared to be in the apartment block Rachel had spent time in, but Alec was nowhere in her range. She suspected that he had already left for Tampa. Well, Inference Engine was generally willing to share information, right?
Hello! Has Alec left for Tampa?
[Agreement]
Cool, I thought so. Thanks for confirming that for me.
[Data]
Huh, ok. I'll check the calendar, thanks for the heads up.
Putting action to, er, thoughts? Huh, snark-speak wasn't quite words,
even if she mentally processed most of it as such. At any rate, she opened her calendar and confirmed that a general 'be available'
block was scheduled for the following morning.
Once arriving at the Wards area Taylor got an email informing her that all Wards needed to be available in the morning and that patrols had already been canceled. Carlos checked his own phone, likely having gotten the same message.
Taylor chuckled a little as she went to change, tomorrow was apparently going to be fun. Or at least tomorrow morning was.
Tomorrow afternoon was going to depend on how her next firearms class went.
Saturday morning Taylor was kicked out of the house earlier than usual. Danny had decided that he and the electrician would set up the home theater without her help, and to avoid having her try to assist he wanted her to not be home. As such she left for the PRT building directly after breakfast, taking the bus because it was actually snowing. Lightly.
Taylor might have been more annoyed with being kicked out for the duration of the home theater install if she didn't have places to be and if her father's arguments hadn't been solid. It would be hard to explain if she had an easier time holding some of the heavier items than she normally would have, and it was likely Taylor wouldn't notice she was doing so. That and she suspected that her work on the comfort system install was going to be looked at, 'just in case'.
Today's point of entry was the gym, in part because she planned on working out. She was pleasantly surprised to find that Amy was approaching as she entered, though wondering why the other girl was around this early. Either way she needed to get changed, but she took her time so that the healer could catch up.
"Oh, good morning Taylor," Amy said as she entered the locker room. "Why are you here so early?"
"Morning Amy," Taylor responded. "I got kicked out of the house so that I wouldn't be in the way of my father working with an electrician.
How about you?"
[Greetings]
Hi Shaper. Nice that you have ideas on the remotely checking my health bit. Can you discuss them with Broadcast Administrator
without me so that I can pay attention to Amy?
Amy rolled her eyes. "Vicky wasn't feeling well after eating some expired leftovers but didn't check with me and ended up sick this morning. While I could fix her up easily enough I couldn't do the same for the toilet. So I escaped before the plumber showed up to replace it. I'll head over to the hospital from here, but they don't expect me for a couple of hours."
[Agreement] Agreement
Well, you two have fun.
Taylor pushed their discussion away from her conscious mind and focused on Amy. "I see. I am free for a couple of hours as well, so I guess we can take our time. I don't suppose you have any tips on making non-cape friends?"
"Not really, no. I don't really have that many friends of my own in the first place. I think you, Missy, and Riley are about it, everyone else has been more of Vicky's friend or is only around because someone else in the group is there. And really, Missy is only because lately I have been working out at the same time as her a little more often than I do with you."
"I am starting to wonder if all capes end up being generally antisocial regarding non-capes or if it is just something about Brockton Bay."
Amy shrugged, apparently never having given it much thought.
"Anyone have any clue why we are all waiting?" Dennis asked the room at large.
"I'm going to go with one or more of Taylor's new recruits is being brought in for meet and greet," Dean responded, before grumbling as Missy overtook him in the racing game they were playing. Chris
was in the lead and Carlos had pretty much given up and started exploring the map instead.
"New recruits, plural? Taylor, how many people have you recruited?"
"Hey, only one of them was a solo," Taylor retorted. "Missy helped with the other three."
"Only on a technicality," Missy chimed in. A moment later Dean sideswiped her and knocked her off the course, causing her to swear under her breath. "Besides, you were the primary, given that you started the whole thing. And dragged me along to meet with them."
"They came to me first! And it looks like they are on their way, so we should probably get ready."
The four playing the game turned it off and cleaned it up and everyone made sure they had their various bits of headgear on.
Shortly after everyone was ready the 'visitors coming in' chime went off, so they lined up. They didn't try and line up in any particular order, which meant Taylor was probably right about the unintentional order when she was introduced.
A moment later the door opened and Miss Militia led Lisa and Brian into the room. Brian hadn't changed his costume much, mostly it looked more freshly purchased. Or maybe just better washed. Lisa,
on the other hand, was in a dark blue business suit with a matching domino mask and bowler hat.
Hey Inference Engine, are their costumes armored?
[Data]
Oh, just Brian's? Ok. He stick with 'Grue'?
[Agreement. Data]
Thanks.
"Hello Wards," Miss Militia said. "Today you have two new members,
both of whom are former mercenaries recruited by Maul with assistance from Vista." Huh, that was probably a better way of putting it than former villains.
"Hello," Brian started. "I'm Grue."
"And I'm Mycroft," Lisa continued. "And no, we don't need cape name introductions from the group of highly recognizable capes."
Carlos, who had been about to introduce everyone, visibly paused.
"Well, as it isn't as broadly advertised, I am the current Wards leader.
Though I wonder about why you picked your names. Come to think of it, never did ask Maul that either because we were too busy being confused about her bullshit anti-hero branding."
"I picked Grue for the Old English meaning and they let me keep it with my anti-hero status," Brian said. Dennis audibly swore a complaint, but not loudly enough for it to be clear to the others.
"I wanted to be Major Obvious, so I could claim to have gotten a promotion. But they nixed that, said that if I included a military rank in my name I would have to start at Private," Lisa said, visibly frowning.
"I then considered Sherlock, but that was taken by another thinker.
One who likely sucks compared to me, if what they told me is correct, and my power agrees. So I decided Mycroft was a good way to stick it to them, if they ever figure it out. I won't be holding my breath."
"For me," Taylor said, pulling her maul out of the hidden pocket on her back. Miss Militia and Lisa both had their eyes visibly widen. "I like my maul, so why not be named after one?"
"I was unaware that your powers give you the ability to store things like that," Miss Militia said, gesturing at the maul. "As that would not have fit on your back in that orientation."
"My powers don't give me anything like that. The pocket I am storing the maul in was a gift."
"I see. Well then," Miss Militia said, shaking her head as Taylor put the maul away. "First up, despite now technically being the oldest,
Grue here won't be eligible for Wards leader until after he is old enough to move on to the Protectorate, so Aegis will retain leadership. Having said that, I think I will leave the eight of you to it.
Have fun." She then left.
Taylor suspected a report was going to be made about her pocket and she would get questioned. Later, in private. Still, they had other things to get to. "Is this where we ask powers or identities first?
Because I think Mycroft here would love to try and replicate my 'guess the powers' trick."
"You are Miss Bullshit power-talker," Lisa said, rolling her eyes.
"Aegis is ultra-adaptable. Vista warps space and matter,
Clockblocker freezes things in place. Kid Win is a tinker, and Gallant is pretending to be a tinker but actually has some emotion sensing and control."
"If you couldn't tell," Taylor said, gesturing at the two. "Mycroft is a thinker. Grue on the other hand has a shaker ability to shroud an area in darkness."
"Which leaves us names and civilian identities," Lisa said, taking the domino mask off of her face. "You can call me Lisa."
Everyone else followed suit, until they got to Taylor. Who was obviously not paying attention. So Missy crunched space and bopped Taylor on the back of the head.
"Hey, I'm in the middle of a game of Tetris," Taylor whined. "Besides,
they know who I am as they met me out of costume first and Lisa revealed my identity to her teammates when I showed up in costume afterwards."
"She has a point," Brian said, shrugging. "Taylor was the only one here we knew already."
"Note that I just emailed them my copy of the abbreviation cheat sheet for whenever it is you get around to explaining that stuff to them, and don't bother hiding the access keys class as they took it yesterday. We'll have to wait for a different new Ward to play that joke on."
"The more I am around you the less convinced I am that staying in Brockton Bay was the right decision," Lisa grumbled. "Though at least you have given me inspiration for being less annoying with blurting stuff out, now that I have had it done to me."
"That and the paperwork, I assume."
"Yes, the paperwork was a major help towards convincing me of that too." Lisa flexed her hand in remembered pain. "And I am assuming I got off lightly compared to you."
"Tinker fugue made it harder for me to get cramps," Taylor replied,
sticking her tongue out for a moment. "You at least need to put some effort into identifying a cape and probably have to see them in and out of costume first, right?"
"Of course, I need information to work off... crap, you don't, do you?
You see their powers no matter if they are in costume or not, and if they aren't in costume you may be able to figure them out anyway.
You are a potential walking violation of the unwritten rules as a base function of your power, and that is without a power like mine spilling the beans to you at its first opportunity."
"Yea, your snark was a bit pushy at first."
The eight teenagers moved to the couches. Or at least tried to, they might need to add more for everyone to be able to sit comfortably.
Taylor was nice and grabbed a stool from the kitchen area to sit on instead. Once everyone was seated they got to know each other
better, starting with Dennis wanting to know how everyone else was getting anti-hero branding and rules.
He was very unhappy when he was simply told "by filling out the forms." Because he never got to see the forms, let alone try and fill them out. Taylor and Lisa both agreeing that he wouldn't have qualified for the anti-hero forms anyway didn't help until Taylor brought up the checklist and he was able to confirm it for himself. Of course, that just led him to whining about having a pansy-ass power that didn't give him any reason to be an anti-hero.
Shortly after lunch Taylor and Missy excused themselves to go to their class. Lisa quirked an eyebrow at that, and Taylor grinned. "We got parental-type permission to take this one, so you probably can't tag along. Sorry."
And that brought out the phones as everyone else other than Brian tried to figure out what Taylor and Missy were up to, leaving the two to giggle on their way to the firing range.
Taylor and Missy left the firing range a bit giddy, as they had been told they were progressing faster than expected and would probably pass pistols after their next class. Beyond that, Missy was also somewhat jealous of Taylor's upgrades. A faulty ear protector on the pair Taylor had grabbed had led Taylor to finding that she didn't need them at all to protect her ears, even if she was required to wear them in the range anyway. Adding to that her strength upgrades made it so that Taylor had an easier time holding the gun steady and recovering from the recoil.
The main thing Missy seemed to have issue with, though, was that Taylor didn't have to worry about pain from firing too many times like Missy was dealing with, not being used to the recoil on the guns they were using. Missy was doing her best to discreetly rub both wrists at the same time right now. Next time would probably be better, though,
as about halfway through the instructor helped her adjust her grip to reduce the issue.
Taylor, on the other hand, was trying to weigh the pros and cons of Missy's innate skill. Missy, after all, could figure out most of the distance variables in an instant in her head due to her snark and get her first shot down range faster than Taylor could. But once Taylor had properly sighted her target she could more accurately empty an entire clip in a fraction of the time Missy could due to her improved ability to keep the gun on target.
That probably meant that for quick, distracting fire Missy would be the better choice, while Taylor would be better for hitting the same target hard with more bullets. Of course, this was all without Taylor tapping into her own snark. Once they had the basics covered Taylor planned on starting in with projecting the bullets in various ways to see what happened, what worked, what didn't, etc. Missy had confided that she was looking forward to playing with shooting in warped spaces, and was thinking about expanding magazines if she could figure out how to ensure the bullets would still come out properly.
When they got back to the Wards area they found that Lisa and Brian had dragged in and collapsed onto a couch Taylor recognized as having been in the pile of things brought from their former base.
The other couches had been moved around to make room, so now they had enough seating for everyone. For now. They were rapidly approaching the allowed number of Wards in Brockton Bay, though,
so if too many more minors were recruited some would have to be shipped off elsewhere. Which probably meant Lisa would be the first to go, being the only current Ward without any family holding her to the area. Maybe they could hold off on more until after Carlos and Brian graduated to the Protectorate?
"Hello you two," Taylor called out. "Decided that couch would be better off in here?"
"It isn't as comfortable as the one it replaced," Brian explained. "And it doesn't fit well in my new apartment."
"It doesn't fit at all in the hole in the wall I am staying in for now," Lisa added. "Better it get used in here instead of being stuck in storage."
"When are you two being introduced?" Missy asked. "Because I don't think either of you will cause us the headaches Taylor here did."
"Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon," Brian answered. "Though I might tag along on a patrol or two in the meantime. I heard you did so as an anti-hero, after all."
"Just be happy you didn't need probation," Taylor said, pulling up the calendar to check who was patrolling tomorrow. "Looks like your best bet is probably going to be patrolling with Dean and Dennis tomorrow. Unless I missed that you can fly?"
"Nope, no flight here. I suppose you were checking a schedule or calendar?"
"Yep. Carlos didn't show you two that yet?"
"Nope. Any chance you can?"
Taylor and Missy ended up working with the two to show them the various things they needed to be able to look up. Once all of that was taken care of the group split up, Taylor and Missy getting changed into civilian attire to leave while Lisa and Brian headed to get their clothing that had been left in a further-off changing room before the meet and greet.
Sunday morning Taylor was kicked out of the house again as Danny and the electrician had apparently not actually finished getting the home theater working. She did, however, correct the primary input and output audio connections that had been switched by accident at some point. She couldn't test if that was all that was needed due to the rest of the system having been left in disconnected pieces.
This morning Taylor found that Amy had beaten her to the gym. And was showering before working out for some reason. Taylor got changed anyway while Amy finished up in the shower, then sat down on one of the benches in the locker room to wait. She did note that Broadcast Administrator was talking with Shaper again, but couldn't actually figure out most of what they were talking about. The best she could figure was that something external was needed? But not what that was. Oh, and there was a hint of side effect potential in there that they wanted to mitigate.
Amy coming out into the main area of the locker room snapped Taylor out of trying to figure out what the two snarks were discussing.
Amy was dressed to work out, though her hair was still damp. "Oh, hi Taylor. What brings you in this early?"
"Morning Amy," Taylor responded, getting up. "Dad and the electrician failed to get the home theater installed and working yesterday, so I was kicked out so they could continue today. I did fix their mistake with the audio input and output cables being reversed before I left, so maybe things will go better today. What about you?"
"Vicky's little incident yesterday somehow damaged more than just the toilet itself, with the broken toilet being the only thing keeping the leak from being obvious. Fixing that is going to take longer, so the household is down a bathroom. Or rather, was down a bathroom before the water feed for upstairs had to be turned off due to the leak being on the wrong side of the toilet's shutoff. With that we lost everything up there, leaving us with only the half-bath downstairs for a day or two."
"I still would have expected you to shower after working out?"
"Yes, well, the oatmeal dumped on me at breakfast needed to be cleaned up first."
"That would do it."
The two made their way through their workout, including spending some time in the pool. Smalltalk included Amy having noticed that for the moment she wasn't concerned about poking Taylor to look at her upgrades, which was confusing her.
"Oh, that," Taylor said. "I think Shaper is too busy working with Broadcast Administrator to figure out how to remotely monitor me somehow. If they can get that working then you won't need to poke me anymore, right?"
"That makes sense," Amy admitted. "Shaper? Broadcast Administrator?"
"Oh, right. Your snark is Shaper, and mine is Broadcast Administrator."
Amy knew that those names felt right, but wasn't sure why that was.
Taylor had gotten into costume and was waiting for the other Wards to show up. Or at least Dean and Dennis, and perhaps Brian.
Because they had the first morning patrol, with Carlos and Chris doing a flyover patrol starting a little afterwards. Taylor, on the other hand, was getting her first console shift.
Finally the others started arriving, greeting her on their way through to get changed. Once everyone had changed Carlos decided to take advantage of having half an hour before the first patrol was departing to do a quick briefing. This covered nothing of interest beyond group 1 running a ground route while group 2 ran an air route.
Taylor hopped onto the console, skipping the sound shield for now,
and got everything set up. She loaded the relevant patrol routes,
assigned each individual to their groupings, and starting poking around the stupid little time wasters installed on the system.
Because most of the time running console was boring as heck, so you generally needed something to occupy your mind while waiting for something to happen.
Carlos had ensured that Taylor got a decent workout on the console,
having her run through various things during the initial portion of the patrol. But that was about it for excitement and Taylor spent most of the rest of her console time playing chess against 'Wards Console Atlanta'. She lost. Horribly. Multiple times. She wanted to know who it was, but knew from the console class that the general idea with the multiplayer games was that you didn't know who was on the other console and thus never knew what kind of game you might get. You also never knew when the other end would stop being able to play to deal with actual console work, which was why timed games weren't allowed.
Taylor logged off of the console after everyone had returned from the morning patrols. She had ended up not being scheduled for a late afternoon or evening patrol at all today, which surprised her, but these things happened. The only patrol this afternoon was Carlos patrolling with Dennis. Missy was supposed to be taking the afternoon console shift, Chris had a tinker-session scheduled, and Dean had a family event he had to go to. This left Taylor with no patrol partner because neither Brian nor Lisa was an option. Brian
due to not having been introduced and Lisa due to being a non-
combat Ward and thus not being cleared for patrols at all.
The kitchen had leftover pizza that Taylor nabbed for a quick lunch before heading down to the junkyard to deal with her itchy 'hit things'
vibe. Better to keep ahead of it, after all. She found that her 'castle'
had been removed, as had most of the damaged office furniture.
There were piles of undamaged furniture, more so than Taylor remembered from before, as well as what looked like a line of vending machines. Unplugged vending machines like those used in the break rooms that took swiped cards instead of money, with notes hanging from cords draped over them.
Moving over to the vending machines Taylor looked at one of the notes, reading it aloud. "Tinker accident froze machines, contents are free if you can get them out. Fair warning, Armsmaster, Miss
Militia, and the combined efforts of Assault, Battery, and Dauntless all failed. Bonus if you can use the key by the door instead of breaking the machines." Huh. Taylor poked at the machines a little bit with her glove and plates, then pulled out her maul. A decent direct whack with the maul and it just bounced off, the machine unaffected. This happened identically when she hit the lock directly.
Taylor then put her maul down so she could take one of the machines and shake it. Everything inside acted like it was anchored to the machine. Rolling it so that it was upside-down caused no shifting of the internal contents either. Getting the machine upright again Taylor gave things some thought, including poking at the dispenser door to find it wouldn't budge even if the power cord moved freely, before grabbing her maul again. Backing up, Taylor aimed for her projected line of force to hit the lock on the machine and swung. The line hit and did nothing.
Did we hit it?
[Agreement. Clarification]
You think they have a fragile stasis field that wouldn't hold up to a light breeze if not for the forcefield effect covering them? Interesting.
Why do you think that?
[Data]
Oh, you checked when the line of force was stopped by the forcefield. I guess that makes sense.
Grinning, she flipped her mental switch to try and bypass insubstantial protections and barely poked the machine with her glove-plates. This time the machine flashed brightly and Taylor noted that the contents settled a little, as though the machine were sitting slightly differently than it was before. A quick check showed that the dispenser door could now be moved too. Taylor grinned more and repeated this across the line of machines, then grabbed the key that was indeed hanging by the door to open them all up. Some more
thought and she grabbed an undamaged rolling filing cabinet to fill up with all of the the various contents. After all, she had earned them, right? She just needed a way to move them around.
She ended up filling two of the three drawers, one with the drinks and the other with the snacks. It might have been more, but apparently the machines had been running somewhat low when whatever accident occurred had hit them. Still, she left that filing cabinet next to the door to grab on her way out, before deciding to attack the pile of office furniture for a bit.
"What the hell?" Missy asked, watching Taylor push a filing cabinet into the Wards area. She might have gone over to take a closer look,
but she was on console. "Why are you dragging that around?"
"I won the contents of several vending machines by getting into them," Taylor responded. "I decided to use this to bring my winnings back here. I bet they ask me how I did it at some point, though."
Taylor then pushed the filing cabinet to the personal rooms hallway,
obviously 'putting away' her bounty of vending machine whatevers.
When Taylor got home she found her father enjoying the new home theater system, and a pile of packing material waiting to be disposed of in the garage.
"So, it looks like everything went ok today?" Taylor asked as she dropped onto the couch.
"Yep, though we could have sworn we did everything the same as we did yesterday," Danny said, shrugging. "But unlike yesterday,
today it worked."
"I did swap the input and output cables for the audio connection before I left this morning," Taylor admitted, grinning. "They were backwards, you see."
Danny stared at Taylor, then facepalmed. "Why didn't we think to double-check that those cables were plugged into the right jacks?"
Taylor just shook her head, amused at the simple fix that would have most likely had them finished the day before.
Last edited: Nov 6, 2017
Chapter 31 By mid-day Monday Taylor and Broadcast Administrator felt they had a suitable plan for dealing with certain kinds of snark, but needed to test it. Someone like Dean had a snark with too short of a duration to work with, which pretty much left them with Vicky for testing unless they found someone else whose snark targeted brains. Or waiting to field test it, which sounded like a bad idea. Refining the idea to the point of Dean being able to help would take too long without even knowing if the basics were sound, assuming they could ever get it working fast enough to work on Dean's blasts in the first place.
As lunch began Taylor fired a text message off to Carlos questioning him about how to request a session with Vicky to hopefully have her assist with testing a potential Master defense. He quickly responded that he had no clue and to ask Armsmaster or Miss Militia, so Taylor fired the question off to the both of them. Lunch ended without a response and the repeaters went back into lockdown.
Once school let out Taylor found that she had gotten her responses.
Armsmaster had arranged for Vicky to spend tomorrow afternoon working with Taylor instead of out on the Rig, also complimenting her for trying to be proactive about weaknesses. Miss Militia volunteered to supervise and had even gone to the effort of reserving a testing lab for them to use. She also, however, asked for a meeting this afternoon to discuss other things.
Taylor arrived at the PRT building and skipped the gym, getting changed and wandering up to Miss Militia's office instead.
"Good afternoon Maul," Miss Militia said, gesturing to a seat and a stool in front of her desk. Taylor took the stool, so she didn't have to take her jacket off. "How are you today?"
"I'm fine," Taylor replied. "Though curious as to why you wanted to speak with me?"
"I think I should give you some backstory first. A couple of days ago a set of vending machines was moved into the junkyard with the intent of directing the Wards to take a crack at damaging them,
before they were shipped out of the Bay for further testing. The entire set of vending machines had been hit by a tinkertech device intended to try and mimic Glory Girl's invulnerability, a device that self-destructed in the process of giving us a set of indestructible vending machines that we couldn't use. What I would like to know is how it is all of them were opened yesterday, apparently by you."
"Oh, my snark and I figured out how to bypass Glory Girl's forcefield,
and that trick worked on the vending machines. Once I did that the linked stasis field dropped and collapsed the entire thing. Of course then the key was right there, so I used it."
"You can directly bypass Glory Girl's invulnerability?"
"Her snark deliberately pushed her to punch me, so I was inspired to think out of the box. As a result my snark decided that her forcefield isn't dense enough to bother hitting, similar to how it ignores air. It actually gave me a mental switch of sorts, for ignoring insubstantial protections and such only when I want to."
"That sounds like a significant boost to your capabilities."
"So far I have run into exactly one cape that it applies to, and they are nominally an ally. Most of the others I think it could apply to fall into the same basic category. Really, having that mental switch flipped seems to make me more dangerous for my own side in a battle right now."
Miss Militia considered that for a moment. "You may have a point there. I think Crusader is the only likely exception you might run into anytime soon, and his projections may ignore your attacks either way."
"I am hoping I don't have reason to find out anytime soon."
"Yes, that is probably for the best. Now then, even though it has been approved I would like to know why you are looking to test a defense method for masters?"
"It was brought to my attention that when snarks target my brain I involuntarily freeze up while my own snark and I deal with the attempt to influence me. This has been seen to happen with Glory Girl's aura, including the first time I was exposed to it and shut it down to resolve the situation and the second time where her fist resolved it. It also appears when Gallant hits me with his emotion blasts, but the effect is momentary there. We are hoping that the trick we came up with will allow us to resolve the influence attempt fast enough that I am only frozen for a moment, if that."
"In that case I will echo Armsmaster. Good job on being proactive regarding this."
"I just hope it works."
Taylor found herself partnered with Dean while patrolling near the docks, Brian having opted to tag along with them. Missy and Dennis were patrolling through the boardwalk while Carlos and Chris took one of the aerial routes. Being a weekday the console was being run by the PRT instead of by a Ward.
So far all of them had found bupkis. Chris had some minor issues with his hoverboard but was able to swap out a piece of his armor to fix it, and Dennis had needed to freeze his costume after trying to fall off of a roof while Missy warped things so he would be able to land safely instead of on the debris in the alley below him, but that was about it.
"Why won't anything interesting happen?" Taylor whined. Not over the radio, but she still whined.
"Nothing interesting happening is a good thing," Dean countered.
"I'm torn between the two viewpoints," Brian admitted. "Boring can be good, but it is so boring."
"I suppose we should be glad that we aren't passing by any bars,"
Taylor conceded. "Lung hasn't been spotted in a fight for over a week, so it would be just our luck to run into one of his bar fights."
"Console to Wards patrol 2," coming over the radio interrupted Taylor's musings. "We are receiving reports of potential armed Merchant vehicles approaching your route. Please be aware that you are now under orders to only engage if necessary."
The three of them stopped at a corner. Brian leaned against the building and Dean stood next to him. Taylor moved to the edge of the sidewalk, listening.
"I think I can hear some large vehicles approaching," Taylor said,
pointing into the docks. "From over that way. And two snarks moving at high speed just entered my range? But they should pass us a block up."
A moment later a loud rumble passed a block ahead, debris strewn about, but no visible vehicle. Taylor monitored as the two snarks pass through at the same time, so assumed that Squealer had equipped the vehicle with a cloaking device. The noise was still quite loud, though, and hard to pinpoint due to apparent echoes. A moment later a second, visible vehicle passed through the same intersection.
"Maul to Console," Taylor radioed. "Two vehicles, one cloaked, just passed us a block to the north. The cloaked vehicle likely contained Skidmark and Squealer, and appears to be turning sou..."
Dean and Brian were treated to the sight of Taylor being interrupted by virtue of going from standing on the corner to flying off to the side.
Based on the debris flying through the intersection a cloaked vehicle had just hit her as it drifted through the intersection changing directions to head south.
"Gallant to Console," Dean practically yelled into the radio as he darted over to where Taylor had stopped in the middle of the street.
"Maul has just been hit by one of Squealer's cloaked vehicles. I repeat, Maul has just been hit by one of Squealer's cloaked vehicles."
"I was right," Taylor mumbled, grimacing. "Getting hit by a car hurts.
Also, I am now missing boring."
"Looks like you need patching up," Dean said. "You aren't bleeding that I see, but I don't think your leg is supposed to bend that way. I don't know if it is broken or if your hip just dislocated, though."
Taylor carefully leaned up and looked down at her leg. Yea, that looked painful, but it seemed like it should hurt more than it did. She carefully felt along it, not finding anything that felt like a break. On a whim she spun it back into approximate position, startling Dean, and pulled on it. A moment later it apparently popped back into place.
She probably shouldn't have done that, given that it now hurt more than when it was dislocated.
"Did you just force your hip back together?" Brian asked, sounding like he didn't believe what he just saw. "Because if so that is kinda hardcore."
"Still hurts like hell," Taylor said, moving her leg slightly as Dean reported what she had just done and asked for a pickup anyway.
"And is hard to move. But I heal faster than most people, so hopefully it won't be too bad tomorrow?"
Taylor was helped back onto the sidewalk as they waited for pickup.
Instead, however, Taylor felt Amy and Vicky approaching. A moment later Vicky landed next to them.
"Hello," Vicky said as she put Amy down. "We heard there was an altercation with a Squealer surprise."
"Yea, they went for the cheap shot," Taylor quipped. "Didn't even have the decency to have a visible license plate to get the number off of."
Amy rolled her eyes before stepping over to Taylor. She leaned down to place her hand on Taylor's neck, that being some of her only obviously exposed skin in costume. "What the hell, did you dislocate your hip?"
"Well, I wouldn't say I dislocated it, but yea."
"And then force it back into position yourself?"
"Yep. Hurts more now, but more useful than when it was out of the socket."
Amy glared at Taylor. "Perhaps you should consider that you can injure yourself more when trying to fix this kind of thing yourself before pulling a stunt like that again."
Taylor snorted. "Better that I can get away to heal later than hope that I have time to wait for help."
Amy rolled her eyes again and focused on healing. Taylor half-
monitored what Shaper was doing as her pain pretty much went
away and, after a moment, her full range of motion returned to her leg.
After a few more moments Amy finally took her hand away. "Looks like your enhancements were only slightly damaged, mostly around that hip but also a bit along the leg, so they should be back up to full strength again in a couple of days. And the minor concussion you sustained is already healing thanks to your snark, and will probably be fine in the morning. I took care of the cracked bones and bruised ribs, and recommend that you not work on your lower body in the gym tomorrow."
"Thanks," Taylor replied, getting up and giving Amy a one-armed hug. She had a slight headache still, but figured it wasn't that bad.
"Hope I didn't interrupt anything important."
"We were already in the air when the call came in," Amy said, turning to see Vicky hanging off of Dean. She shook her head at the spectacle. "It was easier to just come to you instead of heading back to the PRT building, though they will probably take you off of patrol for a couple of days either way. If they ask me I won't be recommending otherwise to avoid you damaging your hip before your enhancements finish repairing."
A PRT van came around the corner at that point, because even if Taylor now felt fine she had still been hit by a vehicle. She just got the pleasure of being patched up before riding back in the van.
"Looks like our patrol is over," Dean said, gesturing to the van. "We will need to see you girls another day."
A round of goodbyes was followed by Vicky picking Amy up and taking to the sky. The three Wards then climbed into the van, with Taylor being made to take her jacket off and lay down for the trip back to the PRT building.
After getting back to the PRT building Taylor passed through the hospital area. A quick scan and Taylor was dismissed, with a ban on patrolling for three days. That was followed by returning to the Wards area, where she was pushed into changing back into civilian attire to get the extra weight off of her. Only after that did Carlos have her sit down on one of the couches as he ran a debriefing meeting.
He started with Chris apparently not having run diagnostics on his latest hoverboard changes before going out with it. This admonishment was accepted with an embarrassed scratching at the back of his head, as Carlos had needed to catch him as the hoverboard failed.
Dennis's laughter was cut off by Carlos getting Missy's point of view on things, which revealed that Dennis had been goofing off on the roof and hadn't been watching for where Missy had crunched space.
Not checking, just assuming that he could move over a few feet while goofing off and still hit a point Missy had crunched when stepping off of the edge was not a good idea.
"So, Taylor," Carlos said as moved to the last group. "What have you learned today?"
"That I need to pay less attention to snarks and more attention to my surroundings," Taylor responded, blushing a little in embarrassment.
"Because otherwise I will get blindsided by things that aren't parahumans."
"Personally I am impressed," Brian said, getting the attention of the others present. "She survived a hit from one of Squealer's vehicles,
which I know couldn't have been easy, and then forced her own dislocated hip back into position so she would have some mobility again. Even if Panacea didn't seem to like the fact she did the latter after the fact."
"It did hurt quite a bit, but perhaps that whole no pain, no gain saying applies there."
Carlos sighed. "You appear to have gotten the lesson you needed to,
so there is that. I have gotten word from Miss Militia that you are still on for whatever you are doing with her tomorrow unless you feel it would risk injuring your hip further, but your schedule shows a patrol blackout until Friday. We have the press conference to reveal Grue and Mycroft on Wednesday, so I am going to recommend you be visible in public on Thursday."
Taylor shrugged. She didn't really have any plans to speak of, so that worked for her. Maybe she should go see a movie or something?
Tuesday at school Taylor got to deal with being seen as the primary source of information on Maul, partially because nobody else seemed to be able to do anything but throw out wild guesses.
Granted, she was technically the best source for said information,
but not for the reasons everyone else thought. Today's primary topic was whether or not Maul actually got seriously hurt on patrol, with nobody seeming to think that she hadn't gotten hurt. At lunchtime people tried to crowd Amy away to get closer to Taylor to ask questions.
Vicky was being unusually perceptive, though, and was able to make a single statement that drew attention to her instead, even if a number of people scowled at her in the process. She wasn't all that popular still, even after several times where she had sat next to Taylor at lunch without Taylor complaining.
"When we arrived on the scene Maul wasn't bleeding and seemed to be able to move around ok," Vicky said, loud enough for most of the students to hear her. Once attention was actually on her, however,
she did elaborate. "Amy did her usual check up, but I wasn't paying attention at that point. It would have been rude, doctor/patient stuff and all."
Taylor had to admit that the overall effect was nice. Vicky had, in effect, deflected attention off of Taylor, ensured that nobody would pester Amy for more information, and indicated that she herself had no more information to give. Her snark may be annoying, but Vicky was generally ok.
After school Taylor had headed into the PRT building and gotten into a "light" version of her costume. That is, she did up her pigtails, put on her visor, slipped on her utility belt, and put her jacket on without any weapons. She even left the foam bat and collapsible baton behind. Once she had done that she headed to the testing lab Miss Militia had reserved.
Taylor had to wait for the better part of an hour for Miss Militia to come down with Vicky. On the plus side she had beaten her high score in Tetris. On the minus side she had sat wrong and pissed off her hip. The side she hadn't dislocated the day before. Oh well, she was planning on this being a sit during testing session anyway, so hopefully things would feel better afterwards.
"Good afternoon Maul," Miss Militia said as she entered the testing lab, Vicky floating behind her. "How are you feeling today?"
"I'm feeling fine," Taylor replied as the door shut behind Vicky. "Hello Vicky."
"Hi Taylor," Vicky said. "So why are we here today?"
"My snark and I have a potential anti-master trick we want to try,"
Taylor explained. "The problem is, Dean's blasts don't last long enough. I am hoping to test it against your aura."
"That makes sense. So all I have to do is turn my aura on and see what happens?"
"Basically. I recommend taking a seat in case something goes wrong."
Miss Militia had moved off to the side to play observer, so Taylor and Vicky sat down in the available seats. Vicky then adopted a look of concentration. Five minutes later she sighed. "For some reason my aura refuses to activate."
"Huh. Perhaps I should check with your snark, see what's wrong."
Hello. Why won't you let Vicky activate her aura?
[Smugness]
You refuse to do anything that would knowingly help me?
[Agreement]
How about a trade. You help, and we provide you with information on what we are doing?
[Contemplation]
"Your snark is apparently unwilling to help me," Taylor explained out loud. "I am attempting to negotiate a trade agreement."
[Rejection]
Data
[Rejection]
Do you have any counter-offer of your own?
[Contemplation]
Taylor waited for a minute or two for a response, quite annoyed at the whole thing.
[Query]
Index
[Contemplation]
Taylor looked over at Vicky, who appeared to be trying to activate her aura again. She wasn't having much luck, which was not a surprise to Taylor.
[Rejection]
Taylor growled. "It looks like Vicky's snark refuses to help. At all. We even tried bribing it with useful data, but it still refused because it doesn't like what I did to shut Vicky down."
The three of them packed up, since Taylor couldn't do anything without Vicky's aura activating. Miss Militia did, however, have notes
on the fact that 'snarks' could not only refuse Taylor, but hold grudges. Taylor would find more parahuman information bounty money in her account a couple of days later, specifically referring to the grudges part.
Taylor had returned to the Wards area and collapsed onto one of the couches. She didn't want to go home, but was under orders to not even unofficially patrol. A quick check of the schedule showed that Missy and Carlos were out patrolling near but not through the boardwalk while Chris and Dennis were running a 'detection' circuit around the PRT building itself looking for potential observation posts.
Taylor gave that last one a thought, and fired a low-priority question to Carlos. From her point of view, Dean and Chris would be the better team for detecting observation posts. Dean to find people, and Chris for potentially dealing with tinkertech. Taylor herself was probably a poor choice unless it was believed that parahumans would be involved in the observation activities.
"Hey Taylor," Dean said, coming into the common area from the personal rooms hallway. Taking a quick look she noted that he wasn't in costume. "How did your testing go?"
"It went nowhere," Taylor grumbled. "Vicky's snark wouldn't cooperate and let her activate her aura, solely on the basis that it would have helped me if it did."
"Why did you want Vicky using her aura?"
"My snark and I came up with a possible way to deal with other snarks attacking my brain, but I need one to be doing so in order to test it. Unless your snark can attempt a continuous beam, anyway?"
"Unless you think you can convince it to let me I don't think that will be happening."
"Mind if I ask?"
"Go for it."
Hello. I don't suppose you can allow Dean to push the change in emotion out in a continuous beam instead of a quick shot?
[Query]
Data
[Intrigue. Request]
Huh, so you will want to see our results, but you are going to need extra energy to pull that off. I will have to see if I can find a way to get you some.
Data
Oh, right. Brian's snark might be able to help there. I had forgotten about that. Thanks!
"So, your snark is interested," Taylor said aloud. "But I need to feed it first so that it will have enough energy to generate the continuous beam. Which probably means that being able to do that will be temporary for you, assuming I can get your snark fed at all anyway. I am going to have to check with others first."
"Well, good luck with that and let me know if you figure anything out."
"Will do."
Wednesday at school Taylor found several of her classes cancelled,
leaving her with free periods. Apparently an accident had involved
half a dozen teachers, split between drivers and passengers car-
pooling, that didn't give the school time to get substitutes. As a side
bonus, she could pretty much leave come lunchtime, even if she was likely to stick around for lunch itself. She already knew that the other Wards were not all that lucky.
Today's gossip was regarding the press conference scheduled for the afternoon. Rumors of a new unknown patrolling with the Wards had been making the rounds, but with a lot fewer details compared to when Maul was doing the same thing. Until the press conference became public knowledge the night before most people were just assuming it was an out of towner joining the Wards for a patrol or two at best. With the press conference announcement, however,
'New Ward!' had suddenly become the go-to explanation.
Unfortunately for Taylor, she had been mistaken about being considered the go-to person for information on Maul. No, she had become the go-to person for all things unknown in regards to the Wards. That had just been limited to Maul until now. Luckily her first couple of answers were able to deflect attention. After all, with Brian having been approved for anti-hero she could truthfully say that she hadn't heard of any new heroes patrolling with the Wards. That even covered her for Lisa, who was hero-branded but not patrolling.
"I don't know if I should be happy or horrified that my first class of the day is canceled," Taylor grumbled. "Because with nothing else to do,
other students may hunt me down to ask me more questions."
"Go hide in the library," Amy recommended. "Pick a little booth and do whatever, they won't be allowed to bother you in there."
"You should even have your wifi access unlocked," Vicky added before glaring at someone else approaching Taylor. Said person decided that they had somewhere else to be all of a sudden.
"Instead of being restricted to approved sites like you would be in class."
"Huh, good idea," Taylor replied. "Thanks."
"Care to give us the scoop on the new Ward as thanks?" Vicky asked. This time Taylor glared, but Vicky just chuckled. "Just kidding.
I know that even if you do know something you couldn't tell me."
The group of students doing their best to not look like they were listening in, and failing, did their best to groan silently at that. Taylor chuckled as well, now seeing what Vicky was doing, before the three split up to their respective destinations.
Taylor had found a quiet corner of the library with a couple of private cubbies in it and settled in. There was no way to approach her without being seen, and no way to see what she was doing without coming right up to her, so she was comfortable turning Bluetooth on in her tablet. The problem was, she didn't know what to do.
A bit of poking around and she found a small collection of information and forms on parahuman psychologist and therapist certifications in the PRT database, though the purpose of them was a bit vague. Given that those things were some of what she was doing as a cape anyway she figured she might as well make her way through them.
By the time she had to pack up for class she had read through the information and made her way through all of the forms. She had found most of it to be surprisingly simplistic, perhaps they were a set of base information and aptitude tests for a proper class? But she also submitted a small number of corrections, some of the information was wrong from her personal experiences alone and some of the questions on the forms were based on what she assumed were mistaken assumptions.
By lunchtime people had figured out that Taylor wasn't going to be answering any questions about the presumed new Ward. That did not, however, stop the other Wards from using her to cover their own status by asking her about things they technically already knew.
Some of this was annoying, but Dennis had come up with a specific deception that she thought was too funny to not play along with, and had even gotten permission to run it from PR.
"So Taylor," Dennis said as he sat down across from Taylor and Amy.
"You keep saying you know nothing about a new hero patrolling with the Wards. Assuming that is true, how about a little wager?"
"What kind of wager?" Taylor asked. She knew, he knew, she knew he knew, and he knew she knew, but neither was letting anyone else not in the know in on the fact that they both knew.
"I'm willing to bet ten bucks that they introduce a new Ward at the press conference. What do you say?"
"Ten bucks on them introducing a new Ward at the press conference,
eh? Why not. I'll put ten bucks up to say that they do not introduce a new Ward."
That shut a lot of people up. Taylor was willing to put money on the line to say that there wasn't going to be a new Ward this afternoon.
That was seen as more proof than anything else that there wouldn't be. And if there was then Taylor wasn't in the loop as much as people thought. Only time would tell.
Today's press conference was being held indoors. The Wards minus Brian were all onstage already, with Brian under the stage where a lift and a couple of vents would allow him to push his darkness up and lift out of a trapdoor. Taylor was actually tasked with subtly directing others off of the trapdoor when it was time for his appearance, though the sudden billowing darkness should work just fine too.
Taylor, however, was taking the opportunity to chat with Brian's snark about feeding Dean's snark. So far things hadn't gone as she had hoped.
So, you can't feed Dean's snark?
[Agreement]
Why not?
[Data]
You aren't configured the right way to connect to other Snarks? Can you reconfigure?
[Negative]
Snarks are restricted for what kind of situations can allow a reconfiguration, so he has to meet those criteria first. Huh. What if Dean hits Brian with one of his emotion blasts? Those make a connection for a moment when I get hit with them.
Clarification
Oh, that is Broadcast Administrator forcing a connection instead of allowing things to alter my brain. Dang. Nevermind.
Query
[Agreement]
Oooh, our connection to you allows you to feed Broadcast Administrator. Would a shared channel let you feed Dean's snark?
[Negative]
Clarification
Ah. The shared channels don't support energy transfer, only a dedicated channel for that. Can we feed Dean's snark after getting energy?
Contemplation
During this Taylor was also talking to Inference Engine, though most of that was more 'listen to Inference Engine describe things going on'
than a true conversation. Taylor didn't have the heart to tell it she
already knew most of what it was telling her, but Lisa had admitted that when Taylor was 'listening' to Inference Engine things were easier on Lisa, so Taylor didn't mind.
Agreement. Clarification
You can arrange for a large reservoir of energy storage that can be filled by Brian's snark that we can then feed to other snarks as needed? Awesome. How long before you are ready for that?
Data
Huh, probably at least a week for you to set up the reservoir. Oh well, good enough I suppose.
People had been coming into the room, but Taylor was most interested in one of the last groups to enter. The Mayor and what she believed was his family, including a girl that Inference Engine informed Taylor was the Mayor's niece Dinah. Said girl, however,
attracted Taylor's attention due to the fact she had a snark. Oddly,
Inference Engine had not picked up on that part.
Hello, how are you?
[Annoyance]
You dislike that you can't work properly with your human because of the cycle restrictions? That sucks. What do you do for your human?
[Data]
Visual-search precog. Huh. But it is too much data for her and that causes pain on top of you being forced to inflict pain, meaning she can barely use you.
[Agreement]
Does her family know she triggered?
[Negative]
She doesn't realize she triggered? Huh. Would it be a bad thing if I arranged to meet her family to let her know?
[Contemplation]
Deputy Director Renick was running this particular press conference,
and opened it with one of the usual spiels about the duty of the Wards to work with underage parahumans in various ways to ensure they were safe and healthy. He added some emphasis on the fact that those who don't use their powers have issues, then introduced Mycroft. There was a brief apology that Mycroft, due to the nature of her abilities, would likely not be seen by the public often as she was not suitable for patrols.
[Agreement]
Oh, good. Shall I try and have her stay after the press conference?
[Negative. Data]
Meeting her on the boardwalk tomorrow would be better, because her parents will be happier with 'Taylor' telling them than with 'Maul'
telling them? Huh. I guess I can do that. Need to be seen in public anyway.
[Data]
Thanks. I will think on how to include her.
Taylor fired a text message off from her personal phone to the number Dinah's snark said was her mother's cell phone. It was a simple message, stating that she knew why Dinah was getting headaches, would they like to meet her tomorrow afternoon to discuss it. Brian's darkness spilled up from the floor at the same time, and Taylor felt him move up to stage level before walking out
the front of the darkness so the audience could get their first look at him.
[Query]
Nope, sorry Inference Engine. You will have to figure out what I did yourself. Or maybe convince Lisa to join me out on the boardwalk tomorrow after school.
Thinking about that, Taylor fired a message off to Amy. Might as well go all out, right? Besides, Amy could probably provide a copy of the pamphlets Taylor had gotten, and Dinah's snark had mentioned two friends. Thinking about that, Taylor realized she had no copies of those pamphlets beyond the set Amy had given her, so maybe she should see about collecting some. Just in case.
[Agreement]
Ah, ok. Amy might join us too.
Shortly after Grue's questioning session began Taylor got responses from Amy and Dinah's mother, both saying they would be happy to meet up on the boardwalk. Amy also said she would bring Taylor a packet of the pamphlets, complete with the New Wave pamphlet.
Once the press conference was over Taylor changed back into civilian attire and made her way home. She and her father were heading over to Kurt and Lacey's for dinner tonight and she didn't want to be late. Even if she expected to be yelled at by Lacey for being hit by one of Squealer's cloaked vehicles. After all, if she were late she would be yelled at for being hit and for being late.
Chapter 32 Thursday morning Taylor and Dennis met outside of the school building, a crowd watching them. This was planned on their part, but still amusing. Well, technically they met on the bus, but as the entire point of things was the public spectacle they held off until they were at school.
"So, you going to pay up?" Dennis asked Taylor. "The press conference introduced a new Ward, after all."
"Nope," Taylor replied, grinning. "Because the bet was that they would introduce a new Ward, singular. They introduced two. That isn't a new Ward, that is two new Wards."
Dennis made sure to stare at Taylor as though in shock, even though Taylor suspected he was doing his best to not laugh his ass off.
Finally he visibly slumped and pulled a ten out of a pocket, handing it over to Taylor. Nobody else seemed to notice that this was ready, in advance, without him having to pull his wallet out. Or maybe they felt he had already figured that out and was just faking not having thought of it, so he had come prepared?
"Thank you very much," Taylor said, taking the ten and pocketing it.
Dennis had declined having the ten returned later, saying that it was worth it for pulling the whole thing. Taylor suspected he was also trying to slyly pay her back, even if just a little, for both helping him with his power and letting Amy know about his father.
The two made their way into the building, both amused at the building argument amongst the students. Nobody could decide if this was proof that Taylor had no clue about the new Wards but got lucky,
or if she just pulled a fast one on Dennis because she knew there were two new Wards.
By lunchtime the general consensus was that they had no way of knowing if Taylor was lucky or had pulled a fast one. Which apparently annoyed people. But they also knew that asking Taylor was going to get them nowhere, so they didn't bother. Instead Taylor got bombarded with questions about the new Wards, people assuming she knew more than the press conference had revealed.
Which she did, granted. But she wasn't about to tell anyone else not already in the know that. She did get some more practice hiding things with the truth, though.
"Have you met the new Wards?" got an answer of "I haven't met any new Wards since my last visit to the PRT building." She just didn't mention that she had visited the PRT building yesterday, so her 'last visit' was not at the point the public knew she had last visited. This answer wasn't enough to convince people she had nothing to say about the new Wards, though.
"Do you know what Grue looks like under his costume?" got a deadpanned "No, and I am unlikely to know anytime soon because I am not a pervert that spies on locker rooms." Inference Engine might tell her someday, though. Taylor wasn't going to ask. The fact that this successfully distracted people from clarifying their question was a nice bonus.
"Do you know what Mycroft looks like under her costume? Because that wouldn't be spying if you just happened to be in there when she was, right?" asked right afterwards, by the same student, was directed to Vicky with predictable results. Neither Taylor nor Vicky cared that the student in question was female.
"Can you tell us anything about Grue's powers?" was replied to with a direct quote from the press conference. "He generates darkness that he can see through just fine."
"Can you tell us anything about Mycroft's powers?" Taylor had responded to with "I could, I suppose, but can you tell me what likely inspired the name Mycroft?" That had created a side discussion at
the next table over. So far nobody had even come up with a good guess, and the question had been posted to PHO for a wider audience. Taylor's mother would have lamented the decline in knowledge of classic literature. Lacey probably would too, as she got it right away.
"What about..." was interrupted by a teacher, who had decided that asking Taylor questions all lunch period, preventing Taylor from eating, wasn't going to be happening on their watch.
After school Taylor and Amy took the bus to the boardwalk and sat down in the area they were meeting Dinah's family at, even if only Taylor knew that was the goal. They were a little early, but Amy took the opportunity to hand over twenty pre-packaged sets of pamphlets.
Taylor stowed those in her bag and would likely transfer half of them to her costume at some point. She figured that nobody would question her having them in either identity.
A few minutes later Lisa showed up and collapsed next to Taylor.
"Hello Taylor."
"Hi Lisa," Taylor said. "This is Amy. Amy, Lisa."
"Hi Lisa," Amy replied, raising an eyebrow. "I don't believe we have met?"
Amy is cleared to know about Mycroft, if Lisa is willing to tell her. A skin-to-skin touch would probably be enough there as Amy would then know Lisa is a parahuman and put things together.
"You don't need much introduction," Lisa retorted, holding her hand out. Amy raised an eyebrow, but shook Lisa's hand anyway. "Taylor helped my friends and I out of a jam recently."
[Gratitude]
"I see," Amy said, grinning. "I don't suppose she confused you in the process?"
"Oh boy did she confuse me," Lisa moaned. "I'm not sure I want to admit how, though." Inference Engine indicated that Amy figured that meant parahuman stuff that couldn't be talked about in public pretty much right away, but was going to want more details at some point.
"So, has Taylor here told you what we are out here for?"
"Not really," Amy admitted, poking Taylor. "Just that we were meeting others."
"They are coming now," Taylor said, getting up. The other two did so as well and followed Taylor over to a family. "Good afternoon Mister Alcott, Mrs. Alcott, Miss Alcott. My name is Taylor Hebert. You may recognize Amy Dallon, and this is my friend Lisa Wilbourn."
Inference Engine did the snark equivalent of a facepalm as Lisa and Amy figured out what was likely going on. Taylor had to hold back from giggling. Lisa did not hold back from scowling slightly at the fact that this was only becoming obvious to her now.
"Honestly," Mister Alcott said. "You are just as recognizable as Miss Dallon is. Are you really the one who messaged us last night?"
"I am, shall we find somewhere more private to chat?"
"Roy arranged for a meeting room a couple blocks over," Mrs Alcott said, gesturing down the boardwalk. "I suggest we head over there."
The six made their way to the meeting room in question, which was above one of the boardwalk shops. It also had a police presence,
keeping up the protection that had started with the more discreet plain clothes officers that Inference Engine had informed Taylor and Lisa about, but both had ignored. Once in the room with the door shut the six split into two groups, each sitting on a different side of the table in the room. Amy had, however, aimed to be directly across from Dinah.
"I am going to assume that since you brought Panacea with you that you believe there is a parahuman source for Dinah's headaches?"
Mister Alcott asked.
"That is correct," Taylor replied, leaning heavily on getting information from both Dinah's snark and Inference Engine to ensure she didn't say anything that would set the Alcotts off. Dinah's had even recommended bringing Lisa and a 'trusted friend', which Taylor suspected it knew would be Amy, in the first place. The latter was already making this easier by reputation and the former, er, Taylor didn't actually know why Lisa was here. "Though you seem to be implying an external source. To put it bluntly, sir, your daughter triggered at some point. Likely sometime on the day the migraines started, if not in the few minutes before they started."
"How can you be certain?" Mrs Alcott asked.
"Amy here can verify the claim simply by touching Dinah's hand,"
Taylor replied, gesturing to Amy. "And if I am mistaken she can still tell you the actual source of the migraines, even if she can't do anything to fix them."
Amy nodded and held her hand out across the table. Dinah looked at her parents, who both nodded, before reaching over and taking Amy's hand. Both Dinah's snark and Inference Engine agreed that there was no longer anything Taylor was likely to say that would cause this to go badly, so Taylor could stop leaning on them to watch her words. Though being as blunt as she had been seemed like the wrong way to placate them, but she wasn't the bullshit thinker snark or the bullshit precog snark, so what did she know?
"She is indeed a parahuman," Amy said, grimacing as she released Dinah's hand. "With the normal signs of an extreme thinker headache. I'm afraid no amount of medication will truly help those."
Query
I keep telling you that you can decide who to share that data with.
"So what do we do now?" Mister Alcott asked, slumping into his chair. "She has been having issues at school due to all of this."
Data
[Intrigue. Astonishment]
"To start with I recommend taking a set of these pamphlets," Amy said, pulling yet another set of pamphlets out of her bag. Inference Engine informed Taylor that the ones Taylor had been given were extras on top of the sets she normally carried with her. "They detail a number of options you have, the rules most parahumans follow, and a few other things."
[Gratitude. Query]
While I won't object to you being willing to answer questions for me every so often, I think I would prefer that you don't force Dinah to answer questions she hears. That way she could still live her life mostly normally and have the opportunity to come up with better questions later.
[Contemplation]
The elder Alcotts looked through the pamphlets, passing a couple on to Dinah afterwards. Finally Mister Alcott put the pamphlets down and looked across the table. "We are probably going to have to think about this before we make any more decisions, but I am curious.
Why did you bring Lisa here along?"
"I don't know what Taylor's original idea was," Lisa admitted. Taylor wasn't really certain why Dinah's snark wanted Lisa there either. "But I can provide some of my personal methods for dealing with thinker headaches." Huh, Taylor hadn't expected Lisa to all but state that she was a thinker.
[Agreement. Clarification]
"They may be less needed, of course," Taylor said, grinning.
"Provided Dinah uses her power at least every other day for a few interesting questions she should find things much easier now."
"What do you mean by that?" Mrs Alcott asked.
"What are the chances of the Red Sox winning their next game?"
Taylor asked.
Dinah reflexively flinched, then got an odd look on her face. "Why does it feel like I have a button in my brain with that question on it?"
"Provided you have used your power enough recently you should now be able to choose whether or not to have your power answer questions," Taylor elaborated. "The, I think you have been calling it a mosaic, you construct will probably always cause a low level headache though. The human brain wasn't designed to handle the information overload you are getting."
"Your uncle must have some very interesting contacts," Mister Alcott said, shaking his head. "As you apparently have a lot of useful information."
"Thanks to him I do have some alternative sources of information,"
Taylor admitted. "Though you shouldn't assume he knows any of this."
The six chatted for a bit, Lisa explaining some of her thinker headache remedies and Taylor providing some ideas for things that Dinah could use her power for. Apparently it was slightly fascinated with trying to figure out the weather for some reason, something about the unstable nature of highly chaotic systems drew its attention. Shortly before they went their separate ways Taylor provided the Alcotts with her personal phone's number, in case they had any other questions.
"So that was a thing," Lisa said as they stood in the alleyway that had the door leading up to the meeting room they had been in. "Why didn't you warn us?"
"All you had to do was ask," Taylor retorted. Lisa and Amy both blinked and pulled out their phones. Amy groaned first, shortly followed by Lisa.
"Neither of us bothered," Lisa said, putting her phone away. "You are trying to teach us to ask relevant questions by intentionally leaving things out."
"I see that as the best way to train people," Taylor replied, grinning.
"So, I am supposed to be somewhat visible for a bit, either of you want to catch a movie?"
The other two shrugged and, since neither had any better ideas, they made their way to the theater. Defying stereotypes they decided on an action film, ensured they had plenty of popcorn, and lucked out with a sparsely-attended showing. They followed the film with some shopping, Lisa and Amy getting along better than Taylor had expected. For some reason Taylor had thought there was a good chance of the two ending up at each other's throats.
On the other hand, both of them decided that Taylor needed new clothing more than they did, meaning Taylor ended up with more new stuff than either of the other two. Why did it seem like everyone wanted to change the way she dressed? They even made her pay!
Eventually they had to go their separate ways, Taylor and Amy heading to their respective homes and Lisa heading back to the PRT apartment block she was temporarily set up in.
Friday morning Taylor woke to a pile of forms and information having been sent to her, apparently as the next step in the various forms and information she had worked with on Wednesday. She would have to work on these new ones at some point. She recalled that her
PRT-mandated patrol downtime ended today, so opened her Maul calendar to see if she was scheduled for a patrol or not this afternoon.
A few minutes later Taylor was grumbling about the Youth Guard.
Apparently they had put a longer block on Taylor patrolling, requiring that she wait until Monday. Further, to prevent 'issues' with the Youth Guard, PITA that they were, the weekend firearm and knifework classes she and Missy would have had were delayed. There was even a standard document linked to explaining that while the Youth Guard couldn't actually do anything about the classes, being considered safety and self defense lessons officially, they could make a lot of noise. As such, when the Youth Guard was watching a Ward's schedule for 'violations' of a mandated block on patrolling or active duty such classes were delayed.
Taylor had a short day at school today so that she could be available for Wards stuff, and the Youth Guard had basically prevented her from doing Wards stuff. Because she had gotten an injury that was already healed, and probably would have been fine by now even without Amy's help. Yes, technically she was only barred from patrolling, but that was one of the few 'active duty' things she had available to her. She really didn't have anything else to do with her classes delayed so the distinction between 'no patrols' and 'not on active duty' wasn't going to matter.
Annoyed, but knowing she couldn't do anything about it, she got ready for the day, had breakfast, and headed off to school. Once there she found that the most common questions directed towards her today were all relating to Lisa, having been seen wandering with Taylor and Amy. Neither Taylor nor Amy, who was getting similar questions, responded with anything more than 'a friend'.
By the time lunch rolled around she hadn't figured out what she was actually going to do this afternoon, or for the rest of the weekend really. She decided to eat at school before heading out and made her way down to the cafeteria, as she had nothing better to do over lunch and at least she could hang with her friends here.
Taylor ran into Amy as they both reached the cafeteria. The two grabbed their lunches and sat down, both frequently approached by people wanting to ask questions about Lisa.
"Being grounded sucks," Vicky whined as she sat down, a couple of pestering students having gotten out of her way. "I can't do anything interesting. Like going to see new movies."
"Huh," Taylor said, tapping her chin. "On one hand, I sympathize with you, having gone to the movies yesterday and all." And feeling like she was somewhat grounded by the Youth Guard, not that she could say so here. "On the other, you are grounded because you punched me hard enough that I barely remember getting up that morning."
"Ok, not the group to complain to," Vicky grumbled, slouching in her seat.
"Just be happy that you aren't banned from flying?" Taylor offered.
The look of horror on Vicky's face at the thought of that was actually quite amusing. For everyone other than Vicky.
Once lunch was over Taylor made her way out to her moped and,
with nothing better to do, headed home.
Taylor dropped onto the couch with a bowl of popcorn and hit play on the remote to start the Aleph import anime. The case had indicated it was in Japanese but English captions or something like that were available. Though she wasn't entirely sure about the premise she honestly couldn't call it ridiculous. What amounted to Godzilla strapped to your ass didn't sound all that crazy when you shared a city with Lung, after all.
Unfortunately, the opening credits had barely gotten started when Taylor's 'Maul' phone rang, the caller ID indicating that it was Armsmaster. Taylor sighed as she paused the video and answered.
"Maul," Taylor said. Armsmaster would appreciate the efficiency, she was sure. It had nothing to do with being annoyed at the timing of the interruption. Nothing at all.
Amusement
NOTHING AT ALL!
"I apologize for the interruption," Armsmaster started. "Panacea has requested that you accompany her in place of her sister on an emergency trip. How quickly can you pack for a couple of nights?"
Taylor blinked. Huh, that wasn't what she was expecting. Still, she could easily grab enough stuff for the weekend in fifteen minutes or so, assuming she would be in costume during the day. Too bad about the popcorn, though.
"I'm already at home, so fifteen minutes, call it half an hour to clean up what I was in the middle of?" Taylor answered, turning off the home theater system. Her father could deal with the video in it should he want to watch something else.
"I'll have a van dispatched, it should show up in twenty to forty minutes, depending on traffic."
Taylor made her way into the kitchen, grabbing the lid for the popcorn bowl. Or rather salad bowl, they just used it for popcorn.
She slapped that onto the bowl and left it on the counter. Her already-opened soda came with her as she headed upstairs to pack.
Once at the PRT building Taylor had been met by Battery, who passed a rigid rolling suitcase off to Taylor. "You don't need to costume up yet, but you should load what will fit of your costume and equipment into this, then meet me at the helipad on the roof. And hurry!"
Taylor grabbed the suitcase and darted back down into the parking garage. She heard Battery yell, apparently in confusion, but Taylor knew that the fastest route to the Wards area was through the Wards lot. Even if she would have to carry the rolling suitcase through the stairwell. It didn't take her long to get to the Wards area itself and into her room. There she popped the suitcase open and shifted her costume and weapons into it, dropping the spare charging pad she had gotten into a pocket. The jump harness pieces ended up dumped into a large pocket in the inside of the suitcase's lid before she closed everything up.
A quick double-check that she had everything, including her Maul hidden inside of the jacket pocket as it wouldn't fit otherwise, and she was out the door to the elevator. Reaching it she flagged it for an express run to the roof. She had to wait for it to come down to her,
but once it did the tinkertech-enhanced elevator made short work of the distance.
"That was faster than I expected," Battery admitted. "Given that you ran the wrong way to start with."
"The fastest path to the Wards area was through the Wards parking area," Taylor explained. "Even if it is unconventional to dart over without a vehicle."
"That makes sense. Come on, Panacea is already on her way to the Rig."
Battery directed Taylor to get into a short-hop transport that was waiting on the helipad. Taylor loaded the suitcase and her travel bag in, then hopped in herself. Battery climbed in behind her and closed the door before the pilot took off.
"We have a few minutes to chat. What have you been told?" Battery asked.
"Just that I was requested instead of Vicky for an emergency trip,"
Taylor admitted. "Armsmaster tends to be quick and to the point, as I
understand it."
"There are three tasks on this trip. The first is for Panacea to heal a group of students that were injured when a piece of tinkertech underwent what we believe to be an energetic failure. Figuring out whether or not that was an intentional security measure or not is Armsmaster's job, which includes seeing if he can locate the tinker.
The last is protection of Panacea and showing that we are around,
which falls to the two of us. We will likely also get more local cape support."
"Why does this sound like something Wards shouldn't be involved in?"
"Most of the actual work is going to be done by Protectorate members, you are playing honor guard of sorts. That won't look out of place age-wise compared to Panacea and won't have any issues with things like restrooms. More important is the fact that Panacea requested you. Of course the Youth Guard will probably be pissed,
then again, they are the ones that extended the block on patrols instead of insisting on 'off active duty' instead. None of this trip counts as a patrol, so while they may be annoyed they can't actually complain."
That had Taylor giggling, and a couple minutes later they had landed on the Rig. Taylor and Battery shifted the collection of luggage over to a much larger transport on the next helipad slot over, including some of Battery's stuff that had been loaded before Taylor had made it to the PRT roof. It felt like Amy was on her way up with Armsmaster, perhaps she had taken the ferry over?
A minute later Amy and Armsmaster came out onto the helipad, Amy in the same clothing she had worn to school and Armsmaster in his power armor. Amy was pulling a small suitcase behind her while Armsmaster had two larger containers following him. Two PRT officers followed behind them with their own suitcases in tow, it looked like one male and one female.
Armsmaster's larger containers slid themselves into storage bays that they were obviously designed to slot into while everyone boarded. The four parahumans were instructed to sit down and strap in for takeoff and given a quick safety lecture by the PRT officers.
Amy rolled her eyes at this, though it was new to Taylor at least.
Probably only new to Taylor, really.
Five minutes later the transport had taken off and they were permitted to move around. The passenger area they were in was larger than Taylor would have expected. They were in the main area.
To the rear of the transport were what looked to be two restrooms,
one on each side of a little kitchenette stocked with snacks and,
presumably, drinks in a mini-fridge. Towards the front of the transport were two other rooms, marked with the traditional male and female signs. Given the benches visible through the open doors Taylor assumed those were intended to be changing rooms.
"I assume you have gotten a basic briefing," Armsmaster said to Taylor. Battery nodded, and Armsmaster continued. "We will be arriving at in a couple of hours, by which point you will want to be in costume. You and Panacea will then be brought to where the injured parties are while I am brought to look at where the incident occurred.
With any luck Panacea will have finished within an hour, at which point you two will be free to wander, though that will be subject to change based on our findings."
Taylor gave that some thought before shrugging and dragging the suitcase containing her costume into one of the other rooms. Amy grinned a little but followed Taylor, obviously figuring that changing into her costume was a good idea as well.
"I guess you two aren't body-shy?" Battery commented.
"We change together often enough in the locker room at the gym,"
Amy replied before shutting the door behind them.
"So, Maul," the male PRT officer spoke up as Taylor and Amy came out of the changing room. "My sister was apparently impressed with your initiative."
"Your sister?" Taylor asked, obviously confused.
"Felicity, she would have given you your console and access keys classes. Security clearances too, I think?"
"Ah, so are you her older or younger brother?"
"I am sadly the youngest of my siblings."
"Didn't Felicity say she had six sisters?" Amy asked. "Meaning you had seven older sisters at a minimum?"
"Dad died in a plane crash on his way to a convention when I was one," the officer replied. "Seven older sisters, then mom basically started dating our then-neighbor, who had lost her husband to the same crash. She and her two daughters moved in with us when I was five, I think it was, when their house was discovered to have some serious foundation issues. I ended up very happy to have the smallest, but blissfully private bedroom and bathroom. Even if I had to clean both myself to my mother's standards from age ten on."
"I find myself curious," Battery said, sounding cautious. "Did their cycles sync up?"
The officer shuddered. "Not fully, but not for lack of trying."
Taylor thought about that for a minute as Battery lightly patted the poor officer on the shoulder. She came to an interesting conclusion and turned to Amy. "So, speaking of cycles, I don't think I've had one in the past couple of months?"
Amy blinked, before poking Taylor. "Huh. It looks like your period probably started this morning. But your body is absorbing the waste material before it makes it out. I think I am officially jealous. Your
healing factor even appears to be keeping your hormone balance correct."
"Please tell me that is something reproducible?" Battery asked. The female PRT officer was nodding in agreement.
"Er, it is one of the benefits of the tinker fugue targeting me?" Taylor said. "No idea how to accomplish just it."
"Damn," the female PRT officer said. "For the first time I think I want to be subject to the horrors of a tinker fugue, if only for the chance of having periods so light I don't know I am having them." Battery and Amy both seemed to agree with that sentiment.
Taylor and Amy had settled down on one of the bench seats in the larger area of the transport. Amy was poking through Bluetooth hardware information while monitoring Taylor's Bluetooth activity.
Taylor was going through the forms and information she had received that morning, using Bluetooth to navigate and fill things out so that Amy had activity to look for. There were enough things in this set to keep her busy with that for a few days.
"I don't get it," Amy finally said, around half an hour before they would arrive. "Nothing seems to line up properly. It is like you aren't actually using Bluetooth. Either that or there is literally no good point for me to start at to figure out how that module works."
"Given her ability to interface with secured devices, perhaps she only has the secure Bluetooth functionality available," Armsmaster offered. "That is actually implemented as a second hardware set from normal, non-secure Bluetooth and the latter isn't generally included in most secure accessories."
Amy looked down at the information she had been referencing, then poked Taylor again. "Damnit, I think you are right. And I'm not cleared for the secure stuff. That would explain why nothing seemed to line up."
"So anything I want to talk to I will need to get from the PRT store?"
Taylor asked.
"Essentially, yes," Armsmaster confirmed.
"Good to know."
As they were approaching their destination, both Amy and Taylor packed up their tablets. Taylor was using the rolling suitcase to hold her 'civilian' stuff out of sight while Amy didn't have to worry about that. They bucked up for the final approach and chatted a little about nothing of consequence. It seemed to take forever, but eventually they landed. Taylor noted that there were a couple of snarks she hadn't seen before in the area, apparently approaching the transport.
Chapter 33 Taylor looked at the small group of people waiting for them as they stepped off of the transport and onto the sports field it had apparently landed in. The two capes she had already sensed were there, plus two police officers. Focusing on the capes, Taylor recognized Legend immediately. The other was a female she was less familiar with. Still, she was about to try and interact with them,
so she poked Legend's snark to start with.
Hello there!
[Hunger]
Yes, well, there isn't a lot I can do about that right now. Sorry.
[Acquiescence]
At least Legend's snark wasn't excessively rude like most of the hungry ones were? She then poked the other cape's snark.
Hello!
[Affirmation]
That should hopefully be enough to keep her from being distracted.
"Welcome to Cornell University," one of the police officers said.
"Thank you all for coming," Legend added. "I assume everyone has been briefed?" The group that had arrived all nodded. "Very good. I am, if you are somehow unfamiliar with me, Legend." Amy snorted at that one. "And this is Prism, who was brought in so she could use her duplicates to approach any suspected tinkertech safely."
"Nice to meet you all," Prism said, waving.
"And these two gentlemen are officers Casteel and Waterson,"
Legend continued, before gesturing to the arriving group.
"I am Armsmaster," Armsmaster replied, then gestured to Battery.
"This is Battery, here for supervision of a female Ward. Next to her is Maul, the Ward in question, and Panacea."
"Very good," Legend said. "Now then, as a general note, there are no other known PRT or Protectorate affiliated parahumans on campus."
He seemed to look at Taylor specifically there. "As such any other parahumans encountered should be treated with extreme caution.
That will include our mystery tinker, if they are still around. It is also possible that the tinkertech in question was merely purchased and there are no tinkers on campus."
"Unless there is something else urgent I should get to healing," Amy said, looking at everyone.
"I just want to know how to ensure I am on the right radio channel,"
Taylor said. "Before we split up and all."
"Are you signed in on the console app?" Prism asked. Taylor nodded. "I'll have our console shift you to the right channel when we get Armsmaster and Battery shifted over."
"Thanks."
"If you girls will come with me," Officer Waterson said, gesturing behind him. "We can get Panacea to where the injured students are."
Taylor joined Amy and Battery as they followed the officer to a nearby building, which turned out to be the campus hospital. Taylor and Battery ended up in a waiting room while Amy dealt with the injuries, though Taylor did 'listen in' via Shaper.
"There is no way that was a normal explosion," Taylor said after the third of fifteen students was healed.
"What do you mean?" Battery asked. "And for that matter, how do you know?"
"The students being healed were all frozen somehow," Taylor answered. "I was told so by Panacea's snark. She is dealing mostly with extreme frostbite type damage in their extremities."
"Huh, maybe a cryogenic tinker or similar made the device?"
"Could be."
A few minutes later Taylor got a notification that she had been switched to a 'Cornell Incident' dedicated radio channel. Battery pulled her own phone out of a hidden pocket, likely having gotten a similar notice but lacking the enhancements Taylor was taking advantage of.
"Console to Battery and Maul," came over the radio a moment later.
"Please confirm successful channel switch."
"Maul to Console," Taylor responded while Battery was still reaching for the side of her head. "Confirming channel switch."
"Battery to Console," Battery responded, looking curiously at Taylor.
"Confirming channel switch."
"Acknowledged," the console operator returned, before going silent.
"You know," Battery said, gesturing to Taylor. "The last time I came along on one of these I had to work with Glory Girl. Having someone actually on the radio with us means that once everyone is healed only one of the two of us has to stick with Panacea, instead of me having to stick with both of you."
"Is that a hint that you find us boring and want an excuse to run off?"
Taylor asked. "Or are you trying to hint that I should make myself scarce so you can chat with Panacea?"
Battery thought about that for a moment. "I think I was getting at you two not needing adult supervision, with a side of me then being able to work with the others to finish up faster?"
"Faster compared to what?"
"Compared to Armsmaster, Legend, and Prism working without me?"
"Huh." Taylor considered pointing out the more obvious solution, but decided against it for now. After all, she was technically supposed to be playing 'Honor Guard' for Amy, and there may be other reasons for how they were doing things. "Ok, I can see that, and I think Panacea and I can manage."
"Then once we are done here I'll go and help the others search."
Taylor and Amy had been shown to a townhouse, one the officer indicated hadn't been in use this term and had thus been offered for use by the visiting parahumans during their stay. That it was at the north end of campus was probably intentional, with the on-campus hotel being fairly close to where the tinkertech device had injured people.
The townhouse had two bedrooms, each bedroom having two beds.
Taylor and Amy were in one room with Prism and Battery using the other. Legend and Armsmaster were apparently set up in the hotel instead, to be closer to where things had happened. That and they had different needs, given their positions. Taylor wasn't entirely sure of the logic, given that a student would be expected to pretty much wander the entire campus, but it hadn't been her call.
Taylor dropped her suitcase in the room and plugged in the charging mat she had brought with her, but didn't bother to 'unpack' anything else for now. Amy just dropped her bag onto one of the beds.
"So, what do we do now?" Amy asked. "Normally Vicky and I would be wandering around with a PRT or Protectorate escort keeping us
away from any danger."
"I think that depends on how quickly we want to resolve things,"
Taylor said. "You finished up the healing, though you said you wanted to check on them tomorrow. So we can go help solve the rest of the issues keeping us here and hopefully be able to leave sooner,
or we can wander around the campus to see the sights and leave things to the adults."
Amy stared at Taylor for a minute, then facepalmed. "None of them has considered using your ability to detect parahumans to find the tinker, have they?"
"Legend might have, based on his actions when we arrived, but rules may be preventing them from officially asking."
"When he mentioned that no other known parahumans should be on campus?"
"Yep. Either that or he was warning against trusting someone just because they claim they are working with the PRT or Protectorate.
So, want to make some passes through the area?"
"Why not, sounds more interesting than sitting in here all day."
The two decided upon a walking route through the non-residential areas, ostensibly including a stop for ice cream as a snack even if it was already closer to dinner. Amy changed her shoes to a more comfortable pair for walking around before the two left, both ensuring that the keys they had been given were in their pockets first, as well as that they had money for said ice cream.
Even if Amy claimed said money was almost certainly not going to be accepted.
Taylor was amused at Amy's gloating over being right about money not being accepted for their ice cream, given that they were 'there to
help the poor students injured in the accident' and all. They had wandered through the entire north side of campus, barring the golf course anyway, and dropped into the southern half on the east end.
Now, fresh ice creams in hand, they were going to wander westward on Tower Road, which should allow Taylor to 'scan' a large portion of the southern campus in one pass. It was also approaching the area that the other parahumans were working in and where the hospital was, which was part of why they saved it for last.
Well, unless you counted them having been in the hospital earlier, in which case they started there, but Taylor hadn't noted any extra snarks then. Of course, given that their target was mobile, they could be circling around the campus missing each other all day.
Taylor and Amy had noted that Armsmaster's containers had left the transport as they passed the field it was still sitting in. Beyond that a small crowd was looking at the transport, which was guarded by a couple of policemen. None of the crowd bothered them, though, the students probably having been asked to leave all of the parahumans alone for the duration.
Taylor absently noted the other parahumans gathered to the northwest of them as they approached a cross street. Garden Avenue, it looked like. She was far more interested in the snark to their south, on the edge of her range. She signed to Amy to stop at the corner before reaching out to the snark.
Hello.
[Dismissal]
Well, you have a high opinion of yourself. What do you do that makes you so great?
[Data. Exposition. DATA!]
"Crap, I think I found the tinker," Taylor mumbled. Amy still heard her.
"And their snark has a massive superiority complex."
"And that will probably bleed over to the human," Amy grumbled.
"What does it do?"
"Single-use, self-consuming area of effect devices. And it wants to show off all it can do with lots of chaos, to stick it to the other destructive snarks. To show off that it can do anything they can."
Amy considered that for a moment. "That sounds like a very fancy way of saying 'Bombs'. Doesn't it realize how hard it is to clean up after that crap?"
Taylor thought about that, getting an idea. The cleanup did tend to be harder than causing the damage in the first place. It was worth a shot, right? And taunting might work to get the snark to actually listen. Still, this would be better if she moved closer, if only to make accidental disruption in the conversation less likely, so she turned south. "Let's head in their direction, in case they start moving away from us."
So, you are content to imitate instead of innovate? How boring.
[Outrage]
What? You just told me you can do anything they can. They are doing things first, and you are copying them. You aren't proving you are better. If anything, you are constantly playing catch-up.
[Aggravation]
If you wanted to prove that you were better you would be doing something harder. You know how they do what they do, can duplicate how they tear the world apart, right?
[Confusion. Agreement]
Then prove that you are better by figuring out how to undo what they do. If they destroy something you should put everything back the way it was! They freeze something in time, unravel the effect to
safely release what was frozen. Prove to them that not only can you do what they do, but that you understand what they do so well that you can undo what they do!
[Intrigue]
Don't cause chaos to get their attention. After all, you don't want to prove that you can do anything they can. You want to prove that you can do anything they can better, right? And what better way to prove that than by calmly coming in after they are done and making it like they never came through at all? Undo all of their work, remove their mark on the world. Tear down their self-created monuments to their own power as though they were nothing, because to you they are nothing! And, er...
[Agreement. Excitement. Contemplation... ]
Taylor sighed in relief. She had run out of material there, but the snark appeared to have wandered off on other trains of thought now and hopefully hadn't noticed her lapse at the end.
"You sound relieved," Amy noted.
"I think I convinced their snark to play nicer," Taylor said as they approached where the parahuman was now moving. "Ran out of material, but what I came up with apparently worked. The question is, how bad is the human going to be?"
"Think you should be calling this in?"
"Well, going by technicalities, no. My task here isn't parahuman hunting, it is playing honor guard to you. I don't have any proof of this particular parahuman being involved in the incident being investigated. And I don't actually have any indication that they are currently dangerous. So on all of that, technically no."
"How many rules are we likely breaking by approaching them?"
"That depends on whether or not they end up armed and hostile. If they are armed and hostile then we are breaking four, I think. If they aren't armed or aren't hostile then we aren't breaking any. Kinda like an automatic 'better to ask for forgiveness than for permission'
dance in the rules?"
"Ok, so where are they?"
"Er," Taylor said, looking ahead. Where an asian-looking young woman with a duffel bag was staring at something in her hand as she walked up the street towards them. "Right there?"
Taylor and Amy cautiously approached the woman, who suddenly looked up and swore under her breath, then looked back down at the item she was holding. "So, er. You two looking to arrest me?"
Taylor looked at Amy. "Have you been authorized to arrest anyone?"
"Nope, I'm just a healer," Amy replied. "How about you?"
"Well, the last time I checked Wards aren't actually allowed to arrest people, just detain them for law enforcement if they catch them in the middle of a crime. Well, that or if they have a warrant out for their arrest. I think Protectorate members can arrest people in the situations that Wards have to stick to detaining, though, and we could always call the PRT, but I wasn't planning on it right now."
"Ok," the woman said. "So if you two aren't going to arrest me, why are you here?"
"Personally, my goal is to resolve the situation," Taylor answered.
"Because if we can resolve things to the Protectorate's satisfaction today I get to go back home tomorrow." Amy just shrugged and waved Taylor on, then sat against the building they were next to.
Apparently Taylor was going to be on her own here. "So, want to talk about it?"
The woman stared at Taylor, then sighed and sat down against a nearby tree. "I don't know what was going on in my head, but I was going to show them all what I was capable of, shove it down everyone's throats that I was smarter than them by detonating things all over campus. I already have six bombs planted, and was in the middle of hiding this one, when all of a sudden I got extra angry, then just as suddenly I snapped out of it. I still know I am smarter, but the realization hit me that blowing up the campus wouldn't show them that. It would have just shown people who was left."
Taylor blinked at that, because she was not expecting an admitted change to that degree. It was somewhat scary, actually, how badly the drive from her snark had been pushing her. "So, if you know blowing the campus up won't work, what do you plan on doing now?"
"I was thinking about starting with turning myself in and getting the other bombs I already planted dealt with? Because it is kinda scaring me how quickly my mental state has been flipping around lately, and I figured that if I turned myself in I could get someone to check if something's wrong with my brain."
"Do you want some help collecting your six hidden bombs first? I figure you might be in a better bargaining position if those don't need to be cleaned up afterwards."
"You know what? Sure." She put the apparent bomb she had been holding into the duffel bag before getting up and holding her hand out. "I'm Vivian, by the way."
"You can call me Maul for now," Taylor said, shaking the woman's hand. Amy also got up and walked over to them. "So, where to first?"
Vivian had worked with Taylor to collect six previously hidden bombs,
Amy tagging along with them but not actually helping. She was a healer, after all, so stayed out of the blast zones, just in case.
Afterwards Taylor tried to say something on the radio channel, but her attempt to do so was interrupted with a warning that radio silence
was in effect and to only continue in case of emergency. The detailed message on her phone indicated that the Protectorate members were in the middle of a sensitive part of the operation and radio chatter could cause issues. Well, it wasn't like Vivian was currently a threat, so it wasn't an emergency right now.
On the other hand, given that Vivian had admitted that the initial explosion was one of her devices and apparently had all of her equipment in the duffle bag she was carrying with her there shouldn't be anything sensitive left that they were working on, but whatever.
Maybe they found something unrelated and were following up on it without knowing it was unrelated?
Instead they used the excuse of Vivian showing them a good place to get dinner to eat an admittedly somewhat later than usual dinner.
Eating dinner with a couple of the visiting capes, one of them being Panacea, apparently made Vivian's classmates jealous, which suited Vivian's ego just fine even if it annoyed both Amy and Taylor a bit.
Beyond that they stuck mainly to discussing things like how New Wave and the Wards differed, even if Vivian was too old for the Wards.
"Armsmaster to Maul," came over the radio as they were leaving after dinner. "We have determined that the tinkertech was either purchased or the tinker is off campus. Please escort Panacea back to your assigned townhouse for the evening."
"Oh goody," Taylor said aloud, but not over the radio. "They finally decided to break radio silence for whatever reason." She then flipped on the radio and whispered, the latter for Amy and Vivian's benefit as the radio would pick her up just fine if she subvocalized instead.
"Maul to all stations, I have the tinker with me. I repeat, I have the tinker with me." Huh, Vivian was looking at her funny. Well, they never did say anything about Taylor's tinker fugue, so the Bluetooth thing wasn't something she knew about.
The radio stayed dead silent for a couple of minutes before activating again. "Legend to Maul, please confirm that you have the
tinker with you."
"Confirmed, I have the tinker responsible with me. I am told we have collected all of their equipment and tinkertech and was waiting for the radio silence to drop to report in."
"Battery to Maul," came back. "How long have you had the tinker with you?"
Taylor thought for a moment. "Coming up on two hours now."
The radio stayed silent for another couple of minutes, during which Taylor led Amy and Vivian in the general direction of the on-campus hotel. Finally a request came in to escort 'the tinker' to that very point, specifically telling them to avoid going to the investigation base station to the north of it.
Taylor scowled as she closed the townhouse door. Battery had come back with Amy earlier, but Taylor had to stay and fill out several reports on her actions. And then once those were submitted Armsmaster wanted her to explain everything, and fill out more forms. Followed by Legend taking her aside and asking her more questions, and giving her yet more forms to fill out. She thought that paperwork like this was supposed to be someone else's job unless she hit Wards leader or graduated to the Protectorate.
"Finally finished?" Battery asked from where she was sitting,
apparently waiting for Taylor to return. Taylor just nodded. "So, how is it that the thinkers all told us that our parahuman detector would be able to find the tinker if they were in town, but you found them instead?"
"Poor choice of question?" Taylor offered. Battery tilted her head to the side, indicating she wanted more. "You do recall what my powers include, right?"
"You can...we're all idiots, aren't we?"
Taylor shrugged and made her way to the room she and Amy were sharing, hearing Battery start a phone call in the background. She found Amy laying back on one bed poking at her phone.
"Vivian all set?" Amy asked as Taylor got out some more casual clothing to change into.
"Yep," Taylor replied. "I think they finished with her before I was done the first round of paperwork. Which, by the way, seems to make no sense as a term when you are filling things out digitally."
"We still dial phones and you refer to your shared voice chat as a radio despite not really acting like one, just to provide two examples."
Taylor put her jacket, weapons still attached, into the travel case for the time being, then grabbed a plastic bag. "I suppose my 'Bluetooth'
organ would count as well, given that it apparently has nothing to do with normal Bluetooth." She then toggled the wear/remove button for the jump harness, piling the pieces in the plastic bag. Once all of them were in the bag she loosely tied it off and dropped it on the charging mat. Not as easy to deal with as the plastic bin, but workable.
"So do we know when we are departing tomorrow?" Amy asked as Taylor continued changing.
"Probably around noon, to give you time to check on the injured students and to give Armsmaster time to pack up."
"I guess that works."
Taylor had finished changing and dropped her visor on the charging mat, circling part of the bag of jump harness pieces. She then propped her tablet up and opened some of the other stuff she had been working on, focusing on reading the various things that had been sent to her. She studiously avoided looking up anything related to what they were actually doing with Vivian.
Half an hour later she gave into temptation and ran a search, finding that while Cornell allowed parahumans to attend, they didn't allow tinkers after two different incidents of fugues damaging things too much. That didn't explain how Vivian was the only parahuman currently attending, though.
"Hey Amy," Taylor spoke up. "Given that they don't seem to have anything against parahumans, and only deny tinker attendance due to not being prepared for tinker fugues, why aren't there more parahumans attending here?"
"Because most parahumans never attend college," Amy replied,
shrugging. "Villains doing so would stick out too much if they went off to school, for example, though you might find them attending classes if they live nearby already. On the heroes front, most Protectorate parahumans target colleges in communities that have a Protectorate base, and become fairly obvious when they transfer over.
Independents usually go for local schools, if they exist, because they are established where they are. Ithaca just doesn't have a cape presence to speak of in the first place, so Cornell likely gets very few parahuman applicants overall."
"Huh. Never really thought about that. Makes me wonder what I should do."
"I figure I can apply pretty much anywhere and not have an issue,
but I don't have a civilian identity to hide. You are in an odd situation of being well known as a civilian, though, so I don't know unless you decide to shift to New Wave or something."
Saturday morning Taylor was confused when she didn't recognize the ceiling. A few moments later she remembered that she was in Ithaca. The notice on her phone asking for her to meet with Legend and Armsmaster while Amy was checking on the injured students might have had something to do with that.
Taylor could tell that Prism wasn't in the townhouse, but Battery still was, and Amy was apparently still asleep. Further, Broadcast Administrator and Shaper were annoyed, from their grumbling they had spent all night trying to figure out a good way to make whatever needed to happen for Amy checking on Taylor remotely actually happen without any success? Well, at least they weren't giving up.
Luckily for Taylor the shower had hot water and was uncontested.
She quickly cleaned up before getting dressed for the day. She found that her tablet hadn't quite charged properly, but that would probably be best dealt with later. Especially as she could probably go three to five days before charging it anyway, depending on how much she used it.
Taylor slipped her jacket on and poked Amy. With her power via her glove plates, because she had no idea how the other girl was in the morning.
"Fiv mor min Vik," Amy mumbled, rolling over and pulling the covers over her head in the process.
Taylor thought about it and decided to go a different route, throwing the rest of her stuff in the suitcase and dragging it out of the room.
Once she was out of immediate range she called Amy's phone.
"Hey Taylor," Amy said a minute later after she answered the phone.
She still sounded quite tired. "Oh, sorry, I can't hang out today. I'm in New York."
"I know," Taylor replied. "Given that I am your honor guard. I decided this was the safe way to wake you up this morning."
"Oh. Right. Just poke me a few times next time. I am fairly calm when I wake up. And a human touching me usually jolts me awake due to the sudden influx of information."
"Eeesh, sounds like you might need separate beds when you're older. Hurry up, I don't smell breakfast so I think we have to go
fetch."
Taylor and Battery had spent their time waiting for Amy chatting about the various things they had pulled on others as parahumans.
Battery had more stories, but claimed that Taylor's were probably more impressive from a long term point of view. Taylor had apparently missed Assault having a mild panic attack for the day following his first ice trail, which was one of Battery's examples.
In Taylor's opinion none of it matched up to Battery's successful creation of a pie that looked normal until you hit someone with it, at which point it exploded with containment foam. That, and the fact that Assault had been the first one hit with it, one day when he was more annoying than usual. He hadn't even tried to dodge, because it was a pie and being hit with it would be funny.
Battery, on the other hand, was annoyed that Taylor had figured out how it had been pulled off within a couple of minutes. Taylor didn't bother to inform Battery that it had been documented as an interesting trick in the PRT database. The entire thing gave her ideas, even if implementing a couple of them would have to wait.
"Good morning," Amy said as she entered the room. She had packed her stuff up as well, so the three were ready to go. "Where are we grabbing breakfast?"
"We're going to swing by the hotel for breakfast before splitting up for the morning," Battery answered. "I'll go with you to check on the students while Maul here gets grilled some more by the bosses for making the rest of us look bad by comparison."
"For what?" Taylor asked, confused. "How am I making anyone look bad?"
"You are up to five recruitments, two of them solo while on the other three you were the primary recruiter. In less than two months.
Provided everything checks out you are due your first recruitment
bonus, something most of us never get because most members of the PRT, Protectorate, or Wards don't ever reach recruiting five people."
Taylor responded to that by dropping her head onto the table in front of her. That might have worked better if her visor wasn't in the way,
but whatever. It wasn't going to hurt anyway.
The three Brockton Bay parahumans had made their way to the hotel, where Officer Casteel took their townhouse keys back as they were leaving in a few hours. From there they were provided with breakfast before splitting up, with Taylor heading over to where the temporary command post of sorts had been set up. There she found Armsmaster packing up some of his equipment while Legend and Prism packed away some scanning and communication gear.
"Hello," Taylor called out. "I was asked to meet with people?"
"Ah, Maul," Legend said, putting the item he was packing away in the case before coming over to shake her hand. "Thank you for your assistance yesterday, and the Protectorate thinkers apologized for not realizing that there were two ways to interpret 'parahuman detector'. In particular, they apologized for not considering a tinkertech solution."
"I just wanted to be able to head home faster," Taylor admitted.
"Given that Panacea and I had nothing better to do I figured wandering around where you guys weren't focusing on gathering evidence was the best way to do so."
"Yes, that was a very good plan. I wish we had come up with it. Still,
your file is interesting, given that I had missed a few things going on.
Is there any chance you can tell me about my, er, what was it..."
"Snark?" Taylor offered.
"Yes! My snark."
Hello again.
[Hunger]
Yes, you are hungry, I'm sorry I can't help you there. Is there anything else you want me to know about you? Or that you would like your human to know or do more often?
[Contemplation. Data]
Huh. Interesting. I'll let him know.
"Your snark is hungry, still don't know why that crops up every so often," Taylor started. "And apparently it thinks that it could control temperature better than fires and oil when working with metals but nobody ever lets it try and prove it?"
Legend went to respond to that, then paused. He tapped his chin a couple of times. "That would explain some of the minor variations on effects I have available but don't normally use. I might have to look into that, if I can find a decent blacksmith. Thank you for the insight."
"Any chance of checking mine?" Prism asked. "I keep getting an itch that isn't an itch and I don't know what is up with it?"
Taylor looked to Legend, who shrugged.
Hello. Is there anything you want to tell me about yourself or that you want me to tell your human?
[Data. Elaboration. Data]
Huh. Ok, I can see how that would be boring. I'll let them know.
"Your snark wants you to do more than just use it in battle," Taylor replied. "Apparently being that focused makes it boring? Perhaps get some paperwork done while you read a book and clean or prepare dinner?"
"That," Prism said, obviously thinking. "Huh." A moment later there were two more of her, one of which resumed packing things while another grabbed a clipboard to check things off. The third wandered over to shake Taylor's hand. "I have no idea why I never thought to use my power to get more than one thing done at once. Thanks."
"No problem," Taylor replied. "So, was there anything else you wanted me around for?"
"We adults took a vote this morning," Legend said, grinning. "You get to help Vivian pack to go back to Brockton Bay with you. Officially she is to be evaluated by Armsmaster, Dragon, and Panacea due to odd effects of the tinkertech while it was in her possession. We also hope to use her to help track down the tinker who provided her the tinkertech that exploded. In reality she asked to be stationed where you were, apparently you gave her a good impression last night. She likes the way you think."
"Before you go," Armsmaster interrupted. "I find myself curious,
which snarks have you met that are hungry?"
"Er, Legend here," Taylor said, ticking off fingers. "Battery, Gallant,
Coil. One more I am not cleared to talk about in public."
Legend looked at Taylor before pulling a phone out of a pocket Taylor would have sworn wasn't there. He tapped on it, then held it up. Taylor swiped her left hand along the back of it, triggering the relay watch, and saw a list of clearances show up on her Maul phone. A list of clearances corresponding to Slaughterhouse Nine members, more specifically. She toggled William's, and only his, for a check and held her left hand up again. Legend looked at the result on his phone and nodded.
"Thank you for the information," Legend said before pulling out a slip of paper from another 'how is there a pocket there' on his uniform. "I find it interesting. I suggest you go help Vivian." Legend handed the slip over, showing that it had a dorm room address on it. Taylor did a quick check before heading in the right direction, though Prism really
looked like she wanted to ask more questions. Or at least the one that had been near them did.
Legend and Prism had left an hour before those destined for Brockton Bay. Those that remained had gotten lunch to go before getting onto the transport, a number of students looking like they pitied Vivian for having been exposed to hazardous tinkertech.
Which wasn't wrong, mind you, because holy crap was her duffel bag hazardous.
The entire group waited for takeoff before pulling their food out to eat it, leading everyone to notice that Armsmaster had a pizza and a two liter bottle of soda.
"What?" Armsmaster asked when he realized everyone was looking at him. "I use more efficient methods when otherwise occupied, but even I can't survive solely on the nutrient cocktails I use to keep me going while working."
Chapter 34 After the revelation that despite his reputation and public image Armsmaster did in fact eat normal food, even if in practice he ate his choices quickly and efficiently, the flight back to Brockton Bay was mostly boring. It was taking longer as they were no longer in 'rush'
mode, but was still faster than Taylor expected she could have made the trip as a civilian. Though she did wonder about the flying parahuman that had passed by, she barely had time to register that the snark was there before it was gone again.
Everyone had grouped off for the time being, some by preference and some by necessity. Taylor was sitting next to Amy on one of the benches across from where Battery and Vivian were seated.
Armsmaster had a bench to himself, demonstrating that these were not your average park benches, and the two PRT officers were leaning against one of the walls for the time being.
Each group was also doing something different. Battery was giving Vivian a bunch of information about the Protectorate, Amy was working on a homework assignment for English class with occasional questions directed at Taylor. Armsmaster looked to be working on some code of some kind and probably still wasn't much of a conversationalist even if he did eat normal food. The two PRT officers looked like they were working on paperwork. Digitally. On the snark front Broadcast Administrator and Shaper were in heavy discussions, apparently having found a problem with their plans for cell-phone health checking, but they were working on a replacement model. Or fixing the broken one? Taylor wasn't quite sure there, but didn't want to interrupt them.
Taylor had, as a result, gone back to the pile of information and forms she had been given. She was a good portion of the way through them as none of it was hard, just tedious. What it was all actually for she wasn't sure, as what she thought might lead to a class had just led to more forms. Regardless, it was making the time
pass faster. It was also a good way to avoid Vivian's constant remarks that things Battery was telling her were stupid, insane, could be done better, or needed to be re-thought. Mostly.
"What moron came up with that one," Vivian complained to Battery's latest revelation regarding construction of costume components.
Specifically powered components such as tinkertech and the safety regulations thereof. Taylor had read up on that one as it applied to her watch, visor, and jump harness. In particular she had been curious about what inspired it. Perhaps she could use that to shoot Vivian down?
"That would be Alexandria working with three other thinkers," Taylor spoke up. "One of them was a precog and another was married to a tinker. That particular regulation apparently makes it five times less likely for your costume to inflict severe burns on you in the middle of a fight. Given that you probably didn't mean to insult the four of them I can only assume you are too full of yourself to realize that you don't know everything."
"Oh really," Vivian shot back. "I can figure out things faster than anyone else, then tear them down to make them better. Whether it be people, tech, rules, or procedures."
Taylor stared at Vivian, eyebrow raised even if Vivian couldn't see it.
Apparently that wasn't quite enough. Perhaps a challenge? "Ok smart girl, if you are indeed so smart, can you tell me my civilian name or explain how I have been using two phones and a tablet in front of you all flight while barely touching any of them?"
That apparently got Vivian more focused on the mystery than on complaining about what she was being told, though she still had to pay some attention to Battery. Taylor prepared for Vivian getting PRT database access by requesting a lock on her file with the reason being teaching Vivian a lesson, the conversation they had just had being detailed for reasoning. A mere twenty minutes later the lock was approved, with a note that it was temporary and would reverse in three months unless a regional director extended it. Which meant
that the distraction was over and Taylor should get back to what she was working on.
At least everyone other than Vivian seemed to have relaxed a bit with her no longer spewing constant insults about the way the Protectorate was run. They may not like the way things were run all of the time, but it should be a common courtesy to at least see if the reason why a rule existed was available before you complained about it. If the reason why seemed stupid too, then complain about it.
Taylor had considered changing back to civilian attire on the transport before her little attack against Vivian's ego, but after that particular verbal confrontation she wasn't going to be making it that easy on the woman. So she would head back to the PRT building in costume, which wouldn't be questioned even if she was seen as PHO had attracted a large number of Cornell students that had posted pictures of Taylor wandering around with Amy. Very few with Vivian, though. Taylor wondered if someone was already clamping down on information, or if they just knew of Vivian's ego and didn't want to provide it more fuel.
Once they landed on the rig the PRT officers had Battery,
Armsmaster, and Vivian leave first. Apparently they were taking her for some initial processing and didn't want Taylor or Amy along for any of that particular trip. Possibly they wanted a chance to tell Vivian off in the elevator or something? The PRT officers themselves were mostly working on routine checks and cleanup of the transport itself. Though why they'd stopped and told Taylor and Amy to wait after they had started to tell them they could get going was a mystery. Taylor hadn't been focused on trying to listen in on the radio chatter to know what was going on, because she wasn't supposed to do that with friendlies, so she hadn't caught the reason.
"So, Taylor," Amy said as they waited for the go-ahead to head over to the elevator. Taylor was reviewing the route she had already opened up on one of her phones, it looked like they were going to need to switch elevators twice without using express routes and
would likely need half an hour to get down to the ferry terminal.
"Sarah asked me to extend an invitation for you to attend tomorrow afternoon's New Wave meeting at the Pelham household.
Technically twice, once for Taylor and once for Maul. We would gather for food at around one and then have a largely informal meeting afterwards. Dean has been invited as an unofficial 'Wards liaison' as well."
"I'll check with dad to see what he says," Taylor replied, already writing a quick message out to her father. She had already let him know that they were back at the Rig. "Does Sarah know that I know the identities of the Wards?"
Amy went to reply, then stopped and blinked a couple of times. "Huh,
she probably hadn't thought that one through. Won't that be awkward if you haven't revealed yourself when they get to the part of the meeting Dean is there for."
"I'll probably out myself at some point before then anyway, it isn't like they can't be trusted. Anything else interesting happening that you know of?"
"I am usually asked to visit a PRT office to provide a basic debrief after these things, so I am planning on getting that out of the way before heading home. Nothing much other than that, but I usually try and relax after these trips anyway."
They were interrupted by the PRT officers telling them they could depart, only to find that they had an escort waiting for them.
Specifically, Triumph was standing there waiting, looking a combination of smug and annoyed. Taylor hadn't paid his approach that much attention, not expecting to need an escort in the first place, and as such figured he was coming up for unrelated reasons.
Still, if they were going to interact she should ensure she wouldn't be distracted by not having spoken to his snark.
Hello.
[Annoyance. Hunger]
Oh great, another rude, hungry snark. Although, Legend did seem interested in the hungry ones, and he was cleared for pretty much everything as far as Taylor knew. Plus she had his contact information. She popped a quick text message off to him about Triumph's hungry snark. If she shouldn't be using his contact information for that kind of thing he would likely let her know.
"Hello ladies," Triumph said once the two were closer to him. "I am your duly appointed escort this afternoon so that you can get past all the secure doorways. Apparently the two of you are too important to leave to a mere PRT officer or some likely such drivel, given that nobody had arranged for an escort. As such I volunteered to assist you in leaving the building."
"Who said we needed an escort at all?" Taylor retorted. "I bet I can get through without your assistance, which would be why they didn't bother to arrange for an escort."
"Twenty bucks says you can't," Triumph shot back, smirking. "Just because you are a Ward and all doesn't mean you have clearance for anything on the Rig. They just overlooked that Armsmaster and Battery would likely need to both be present to deal with the new girl."
"You're on."
Amy giggled at the byplay as Triumph indicated that Taylor should lead. Taylor, just to show him up, switched her mapping to 'express'
mode. She smirked a bit as she noted that their elevator trip alone now required SL5 access with a SL4 shortcut being used when they got to the ground floor. If Triumph had gotten his SL4 upgrade he might be aware of the latter. Maybe.
Either way, they still had to wait for the elevator to come back up to them. Once it arrived they stepped in and Triumph's smirk grew,
Taylor assumed due to the elevator being a secure one that required
an access key to operate instead of ID card and biometric scans. He probably thought she would only have ever seen the less secure ones in the PRT building that the Wards normally used, and as such would have no clue how to use this one. After all, he was likely unaware that any of the Wards even knew about the access keys right now, let alone had taken it.
Triumph's smirk vanished when Taylor reached out with her left hand and operated the elevator with no sign of her phone thanks to her relay watch, the mapped route triggering their destination for her without her needing to even push the buttons. Ten minutes later the group had exited the rig at the ferry terminal, having only changed elevators once through a hallway that Triumph had obviously not known about, two floors below the supposed bottom floor that the helipad elevator served, and then shortcutted out through a hidden door in the side of the building.
"How in the world?" Triumph asked. "I didn't know it was possible to get down here that fast. How did you do it? You didn't even need your phone!"
"I paid attention in class," Taylor deadpanned. "Now then, I believe I won?"
Triumph grumbled, but pulled a twenty out and handed it to Taylor anyway. Taylor accepted the money before taking the ferry across the bay with Amy. On the way over Taylor got a message from Miss Militia asking why she had taken the express route out of the Rig.
Taylor explained that Triumph had come to escort her and Amy out of the Rig because he had assumed that no mere Ward would have access to anything there, or perhaps had assumed that no Wards had taken the access keys class. As such she demonstrated that no escort had been arranged because it wasn't needed, and she stuck it to him by showing off at that. Miss Militia's response was eye rolling and a thumbs up, via emoticons.
Taylor wondered why Miss Militia had bothered to ask, or how she had found out. Unless Triumph had asked her about how Taylor
pulled it off?
Amy had gone with Taylor to the PRT building for her normal debrief.
Taylor had changed back into her civilian attire and stowed her equipment, the hardened suitcase apparently hers to keep for future trips. It also fit perfectly into a slot in the closet. On her way in she had also found that her mailbox contained a pack of various armored t-shirts for wearing under her jacket, most of which had rude images or slogans on them. Buried in the middle of the shirts were a couple of extra pairs of armored jeans and two extra pairs of gloves, so she wouldn't have to worry about running her entire costume through cleaning constantly.
Hmmm, perhaps she should use her PRT store credit on clothing?
Then she could use the excuse that she is wearing armored clothing 'for her own protection' as an excuse to get out of clothes shopping with people, and have that as an excuse to not change her style.
Then again, it probably wouldn't work. It was too bad that most of the people who were likely to be dragging her shopping these days knew of her added durability or would merely insist she buy armored clothing in the new styles. The fantasy had been nice while it lasted.
Taylor looked at the container holding the jump harness pieces and thought about how annoying it had been the night before with the plastic bag. That couldn't be the normal way capes dealt with that kind of thing. Pulling her phone out led to finding that there were bins designed to slot into the suitcase with a charging mat built in, so she ordered one. They even had little fold-out holders that would allow her phones and tablet to charge in it as well when set out on the floor or on a table and would allow the mat built into the shelf to work, so she could replace her current bin with the new one.
Once she had ordered the new bin she poked at some of the other 'upgrades' one could get for the suitcase. She didn't think she would need most of them anytime soon, a number of them intended for capes with specific equipment needs that she didn't have. She
sighed before double-checking that she had everything before heading back to the common area.
"Hello Taylor," Missy called out as Taylor came out, she had likely been on patrol with Chris as the two had returned at the same time,
but Chris had gone straight to his room. "How was your trip?"
"Different," Taylor replied. "And all I got to show for it was a crappy suitcase that can't even hold my maul unless I leave it in the jacket."
"Miss Militia let it slip that your recruitment counter went up," Carlos retorted from the console, apparently having turned the silencing field off since Taylor had come in. "But nothing major made the news beyond the initial tinkertech failure of some kind, so we assume you recruited a tinker."
Taylor went to reply, but Carlos grimaced and held a hand up. A moment later he hit the silencer, apparently needing to actually focus on the console again. That was probably why most of them didn't try and split attention like that, it seemed a lot less rude if you ignored everything with the excuse of the silencer.
"Any chance I can take a look at your suitcase?" Missy asked. Taylor raised an eyebrow. "You only get your first 'government parahuman'
suitcase on your first official out of town trip. My parents refuse to clear me for leaving town until my next birthday, one of the few things they will agree on at all, so I don't have one yet. And none of the others have let me see theirs."
"How many of the others have one?" Taylor asked. "I mean, I don't recall hearing a lot about the local Wards showing up elsewhere."
Missy blinked. "Er, at this point I think just Carlos? For some reason we don't get around that much. It isn't like Boston and New York that seem to bounce back and forth all the time."
Taylor suspected that seeing the suitcase wasn't the entire story, but figured it couldn't hurt anyway and brought Missy into her room. A
moment later she had pulled the suitcase out of the slot in the closet.
"I ordered a new bin that slots into the bottom here for my jump harness, it apparently has an integrated wireless charger. Beyond that, as I said before it is too small to get the maul into without using the pocket you put in my jacket. The wok and entrenching tool fit now, but once I have the added bin I'll lose some space so those will be a tighter fit."
"Even though it looks boring on the outside this is actually pretty neat," Missy said, poking at various things on the inside, mostly on the lid. The inside of the lid had a number of little pockets for things,
a few larger pockets behind the little ones, and a number of attachment points for items. The main compartment also had some attachment points for things, though most of those would be flipped out as needed.
Missy then did something that made Taylor very dizzy, inducing a minor headache as her brain tried to comprehend what her eyes were seeing.
"What the hell?" Taylor mumbled, blinking phantom spots out of her eyes. She then took a closer look and saw that the suitcase was now bigger on the inside, but without changing the lid or the area her jump harness bin would sit. The attachment points in the main compartment were the same size, but were more spread out now.
She grabbed her maul and found it fit just fine if one ignored the size of the opening itself. It even fit nicely in a couple of attachment points once she flipped them open. Some more testing showed that her wok and entrenching tool also fit along that side of the expanded internal area, leaving plenty of room for who knows what else.
"That was easier than I expected," Missy commented, poking at some of the other pockets in the lid, probably making them bigger too. "The fabric pockets are just like the utility belts and such, but the harder sides made the main area a lot easier to anchor to. Being one molded piece made it even easier than the closet at home, actually."
"Not that I want to sound ungrateful, but why did you do that? I thought you had paid me back with the utility belt and jacket mods."
"Stop complaining that you are benefitting from my mandated 'playing with powers'. Besides, I had to limit my impulses here, this really was easier. I could probably make it so you could hide the entire Wards team in this thing with room to spare."
"You are going to need to order an antigrav unit for your own suitcase when you finally get one, aren't you?"
"There are antigrav units available?" Missy turned to Taylor,
apparently no longer interested in the suitcase itself. Checking how much extra storage it had now should probably be added to Taylor's to-do list. "Chris told me that something like that was unlikely to be something he could get working properly when I asked him if your jump harness could be rigged so it could be used to move furniture."
"I saw an antigrav unit in the PRT store when I went looking for the bin for my jump harness. I think it was sixteen thousand for one that could be used with a suitcase like this. Manton limited so they won't work on people, only two hours of functionality per charge and they need twelve hours to charge fully. At the time I figured I would never need one because I am stronger than I look."
"It would still work for me, because when would you normally need more than an hour of lighter suitcase one-way? But I'm not earning enough store credit to get one anytime soon. I'll probably be near graduating to the Protectorate before I'll be able to properly enhance my own suitcase, even if I have one in the next year."
Taylor thought about that, then did a quick search on her phone before grinning. "I don't suppose you have a hundred or so in credit available?"
"Why?"
Taylor showed Missy what she had open on her phone, which was a single tinkertech-derived handle for a weapon. Specifically one that was marked as being the same model Armsmaster used with his halberds. "As you can probably see, the store says that these come hollow with a few holes for things, and apparently are made with a process that is unique to a tinker in California. Though I find the idea of a handle-making tinker a bit specific, they apparently do very good work. How much do you think Armsmaster would kick back to you if you ordered one and tripled the internal volume?"
Missy blinked as she thought about that, before she grinned and pulled her own phone out. She double-checked the part number before she brought the same page up and ordered three of the things as Taylor watched. "I think I owe you more expanded stuff now, but we can figure that out later. Because this is probably going to be awesome. How did you find it?"
"I searched the tinkertech parts category for Armsmaster, then filtered out things made by him and got lucky. And I hope you let me watch when you approach Armsmaster with those. As for expanded stuff, I won't complain if you enhance my spare jackets when they finally arrive. The non-rush orders on uniforms take forever, though,
so I don't know when they will show up."
"Parian has an agreement with the PRT to do cheap rush orders for Wards, and only Wards, based in Brockton Bay, Boston, and New York. She apparently has no issues getting children protected with armored clothing, provided the PRT provides the armored cloth, but charges too much for adults to be worth it in most cases. She said something about that being a sign of her not taking sides when I asked, presumably so she doesn't get targeted by the gangs.
Regular orders pass through Dragon's factories or other waiting lists and need to wait for an open slot."
"Huh. I don't recall reading about that anywhere." Taylor even started looking for it on her phone, because that seemed like something that would have come up.
"You wouldn't have, it is a semi-unofficial local thing. I found out about it when my costume was damaged last year and they sent me straight to her for repairs."
Taylor and Missy chatted a little bit as Missy went back to expanding pockets in the suitcase. An actual entry was added to the to-do list app on Maul's phone to check just how overboard Missy was going there. They also grumbled about the delay in the firearms and knifework classes due to the Youth Guard, before they mutually decided they should head home and parted ways. Taylor took the bus home, getting a message that her father had nothing planned for the following day so Taylor was free to go to the Pelham residence in the afternoon. Taylor relayed that to Amy, and indicated she would attend as 'Taylor' and not as 'Maul'. Her father had also said not to wait up for him, and that he may not be home in the morning either.
Upon actually arriving home Taylor found that Lacey was waiting for her. With chinese takeout in the backseat of her car.
"Hi Taylor," Lacey said, grabbing the takeout bags and following Taylor into the house. "Your father and Kurt are off with a few of the other boys at a bachelor party, not that either of them are likely to be at the wedding in question, so I volunteered to come by with dinner."
"How long were you waiting for me?" Taylor asked. She hadn't exactly specified when she was planning on being home, after all.
"About three minutes, given that Kurt saw you waiting for the bus as they were going the other direction and called me, so I was able to figure out what route you were likely taking for timing."
Lacey insisted on Taylor taking care of her things instead of helping set out dinner, so Taylor made her way upstairs. Laundry in the laundry basket, tablet on the charging mat on the desk, phones transferred to holsters clipped to her belt instead of in her bag,
except for taking the time to run a quick search for a utility belt like she had for her costume. She was liking that arrangement much
better than most of her other ways of carrying both phones, so figuring out how to do so in civilian guise was looking like a good idea. Finding one in the PRT store, with a cheap variant listed as available in the gift shop, she marked it for later review.
Taylor then made her way downstairs, with her and Lacey both keeping the chatting to a minimum while they ate. Afterwards Taylor insisted on helping clean up before the two sat down in the living room.
"I hear you had a sudden departure yesterday?" Lacey finally said.
"Specifically, PHO says you ended up at Cornell?"
"Yep," Taylor replied. "Amy needed a her-age honor guard due to Vicky's probation while she healed some students after a tinkertech accident." Accident her ass, Vivian had admitted to detonating the bomb when she discovered it stolen, but Lacey wasn't cleared for that. "I was the only female Ward cleared to leave town."
"Huh. How much warning did they give you?"
"What warning? I got a call when I sat down to watch an aleph-
import anime."
"Wanna watch it with me?"
Taylor thought about that for a minute. "You know what? Sure, why not. You make the popcorn while I set up the home theater?"
Lacey headed for the kitchen and Taylor powered up the home theater system, finding that the video had been left in the system.
The popcorn she had made was obviously no longer available because she had seen the empty bowl in the strainer, but Lacey was making more.
Taylor was confused when Lacey popped out to her car, but figured she would probably find out eventually. Either that or she would forget because it wasn't important.
Sunday morning Taylor browsed clothing options in the PRT store while eating breakfast. She had decided against the Maul-style utility belt for wearing outside of costume, but had added one of the new Vista-style utility belts to her cart instead. She had texted Missy with that decision, only to get a response back telling her that it was a
wonderful idea and that Missy was going to look into getting a Maul-
style one for herself. It went without saying that neither of them was
going to settle for the cheap-ass gift shop variants, of course.
Whether or not to expand the pockets was an entirely different question, which would need to be discussed with Missy later.
Beyond the utility belt idea, Taylor also looked up various other things that wouldn't look too out of place but also wouldn't peg her as a parahuman. At worst she would look like a cape fan, hopefully of non-Maul capes, or maybe a PRT fan depending on styles.
Admittedly that hadn't gone all that well so far, at least on the useful front, as most parahumans wore fairly standard if stylized items and relied on their powers. The exceptions tended to be tinkers, who didn't buy off the shelf and thus you could only get the cheap imitation stuff, usually most readily available in October.
More generic PRT stuff was easier to find, if more limited as they were intended for normal humans. So far she had found an alternate style of repeater watch she felt would be less conspicuous in her civilian appearance. She had also found some generic gloves with small plastic strips sewn in along the fingers to protect them. They were supposedly to be worn when using certain kinds of tinkertech weapons, something about recoil causing finger impacts? Seemed like a poor choice of design, but tinkers didn't always seem to get to decide those details. They were basic enough that she should be able to get away with wearing them whenever, and she was hoping that the plastic bits were solid enough to work with her power to give her a less effective, but more discreet, version of her Maul gloves.
She had several colors in her cart already and was debating on the bright pink ones.
Taylor paused her browsing when she heard movement coming from
upstairs. She decided against the bright pink gloves before double-
checking her cart and placing the order. She would have plenty of
time to look for more stuff later. She had plenty of credit, after all.
"Did anyone get the license plate on the truck?" Lacey quietly asked as she stumbled into the kitchen a few minutes later. "Or perhaps trucks?"
"Your fault for deciding that Kurt couldn't have all the fun corrupting me," Taylor retorted. At a normal volume, causing Lacey to flinch horribly. "Though I don't know why you decided to challenge me to a spot the male fanservice drinking game while we watched three different anime series."
"I could have sworn two of those were supposedly targeted at teenage girls," Lacy mumbled, before looking at Taylor and noticing a distinct lack of hangover systems. "How in the world are you not flinching at lights and sounds?"
"The tinker fugue that enhanced me made me pretty much immune to alcohol," Taylor admitted, grinning like a loon.
"That isn't fair!"
"You are the one that challenged me, not the other way around. On the likely assumption that I would be a lightweight at that. And then you fell for my innocent act when I claimed to not have had alcohol before, despite you knowing that Kurt has given me beers twice."
Lacey grumbled and started preparing breakfast for herself. The ten minutes it took Lacey to figure out that the toaster wasn't plugged in were amusing, and she panicked when the toast burned because part of her troubleshooting had been to turn the darkness setting to the max. She gave up on toast and moved to a bowl of cereal, but poured half and half onto it instead of milk. An odd look passed over her face when she took her first bite, but she shrugged it off and ate the rest of the bowl anyway.
Taylor figured that if previous patterns held... er, nevermind. Kurt was usually the one at the house with a hangover, with Lacey picking him up, because Lacey never let Kurt bring his car in that situation.
Lacey was here with her own car, and didn't look to be in a state to drive, and the two of them were the only ones in the house.
"I have plans this afternoon," Taylor said, getting Lacey's attention.
"Do you need help getting home before then?"
"I'll be fine getting home," Lacey grumbled. "If I have an hour or so to recover. Just won't be getting anything else done today."
Taylor shook her head and went back to browsing the PRT store.
Huh, maybe that bandolier designed for containment foam grenades could work as an addition to her costume?
Last edited: Nov 22, 2017
Interlude: Costa-Brown Rebecca disconnected from the conference call and rubbed her forehead. While the results were nice, a mistake like that with Miss Hebert's paperwork should not have happened. She got up and collected some hard copies from the printer in her office, ensured the door was locked, and spoke. "Door."
Walking through the tear in the dimensional fabric she entered a conference room, where one woman in a suit and wearing a fedora was sitting. Said woman tilted her fedora in her general direction in greeting.
"So," Rebecca said, putting the hard copies down in front of the woman. "Care to explain how it is that you, of all people, checked the wrong box on Miss Hebert's paperwork?"
"Path to indirectly increasing PRT and Protectorate effectiveness with minimal or no downsides," the woman said. "Step thirty-eight.
Check the wrong box on each of four different forms. How effectiveness would be increased was not revealed. Path to directly increasing PRT and Protectorate effectiveness failed."
That... was disturbing, given that she should have been able to point out the documentation issue alone. That implied that something she couldn't Path was likely responsible for the documentation issues in the first place, and had been pushing for ineffectiveness in the PRT and Protectorate. That was not good. But she was able to work around it?
"Have you tried a path to indirectly deal with the Endbringers?"
Rebecca asked.
The woman tapped the hard copies in front of her. "Step ninety-six.
Check the wrong box on each of four different forms." Huh, but due to it being indirect they would not be able to see how it would come
about. Pity that. Nice that they get to kill two birds with one metaphorical stone, though.
"Path to indirectly stopping Zion?"
"Invalid." Well, two out of three ain't bad.
Rebecca found herself in a secure meeting room in Washington, one that had been outfitted to contain parahumans. It had a direct link to a smaller room in the White House, and was the preferred way for parahumans to meet with the President. Pleasantries had already been exchanged, and the verbal reports on various things had been given, including the current state of 'Project Nine'.
"Now then, Rebecca," the President said. "With the routine work out of the way I think we should move to current events. Namely Miss Hebert's injuries and the fallout. In digging into things my staff found that within a few years of the Protectorate's creation Miss Dallon would have been encouraged to brand as an anti-hero and either way her needs would have been monitored. Her file from power testing even indicated signs of her need to hit living things. Looking
into why that didn't happen showed that Miss Hebert is the first anti-
hero accepted in nearly a decade, and that a full third of the
Protectorate recruited in that decade would have been encouraged to brand as anti-heros. Further, at least half of the current Wards nationwide would have been encouraged to brand that way. Why
was the anti-hero branding and the subsequent monitoring of anti-
hero needs effectively suspended?"
"Your predecessors dictated that anti-hero branding gave the entire organization a bad name and requested that it be discouraged to the best of our ability shortly after the Youth Guard formed," Rebecca replied. "I do believe you will find the written directive to that effect in the PRT black files, volume six."
Rebecca waited while the President confirmed that particular directive. Granted, they had implemented it with an 'unofficial' push
from the regional directors, or rather by not shooting down said directors who had agreed with the President at that time. She considered how to reverse the trend, and realized that it would be trivial to bring the Youth Guard in on looking over the proposed changes to the standard joining packet. From there she was certain they would want to review the customized regional packets for potential violations. She doubted it would take them long to throw a fit over the lack of the anti-hero branding options, especially in light of current events, and the regional directors couldn't complain because their agreements with the Youth Guard were supposed to include reviews of those materials in the first place.
In fact, the previous administrations had been the only reason those reviews hadn't happened. Some days she hated working with bureaucratic processes of any kind.
"My apologies for being cross with you," the President said as he returned. "You have indeed been working on a Presidential directive,
and it is not your fault that it was a piss-poor decision. You will have a written revocation of that particular directive by the end of the day.
Do you need assistance in reversing the changes?"
"Miss Hebert's use of the standard packet instead of a customized regional packet has initiated a review of the standard packet,"
Rebecca replied. "As you will not be blocking their desire to do so I imagine that the Youth Guard will be happy to review the proposed changes. Once they find out what those changes are and why they are wanted I can't see any other result than a review of all regional packets, or possibly the abolition of the practice of having regional packets in the first place."
"Very good. See that it happens. Now, why is it that the book wasn't thrown at Miss Dallon right away?"
"The Youth Guard ensured that protections were put in place for minors that were members of affiliate groups. Those protections
were supposed to empower their parents to deal with most powers-
related issues where appropriate, and on a first strike require that we
work with the parents and/or affiliate group leadership first.
Unfortunately, by the time we knew what had happened Miss Dallon
had returned home and was being largely cooperative and non-
violent, so we were locked into following the mandates of those
protections."
"I see. I will personally ask the Youth Guard to review those protections as they apparently need a few more holes poked in them."
"Thank you sir, they haven't responded to our requests for a review yet, but I wasn't going to bother you with the issue unless they were still dragging their feet at our next meeting."
Rebecca looked over the report in front of her. She had all of Miss Hebert's known parahuman encounters and a list of those with agents that she had described as 'hungry'. Cross-checking with those parahumans who had been empowered by Cauldron revealed that there was almost, but not quite, a full match. She wasn't sure what it meant, though.
Pulling up additional information on the parahumans in question hadn't helped either. The pattern just wasn't jumping out at her.
Perhaps there was something about Rory specifically throwing things off? They hadn't scanned him, after all, so perhaps he was able to trigger naturally before taking his vial. That could mean that Miss Hebert could detect those who couldn't have triggered without having taken a vial, instead of just those that had taken vials.
They would likely need more information. Perhaps they should encourage her to interact with others that had been empowered by vials? More data points and thus more points of comparison could help determine if Rory was an exception or if there was something else going on. If hunger wasn't related to vial-empowerment then they could look into what did cause it. But the implications if it was related to vials?
Rebecca's train of thought was disrupted by a text message coming in. A quick check of the sender showed 'Legend', so she opened it.
Apparently Miss Hebert had encountered another 'hungry' agent.
Blinking, Rebecca realized that it was Rory. She resisted the urge to facepalm upon realizing that while Miss Hebert had been in range of Rory that didn't mean she had communicated with his agent.
She still prepared plans for getting Miss Hebert to interact with a larger variety of parahumans and, through that, their agents.
Encouraging more data points was unlikely to hurt at this point.
Chapter 35 Taylor pulled up to the Pelham household on her moped, noting the collection of parahumans already there. She recognized Amy, Vicky,
and Dean, but the other six were more of a mystery. She could make educated guesses, but figured it might be best to poke them before she went in, at least when she didn't need to pay attention to driving.
A minute later she had parked her moped next to a couple of bicycles and made her way up to the door. Here she paused, giving the unknown snarks a quick poke each.
Once she was done she pushed the doorbell, but didn't hear anything beyond the murmuring of conversations not loud enough to make out. She tried a couple more pushes, top and bottom instead of the middle and then ensuring the entire button was below the surface of the cover plate. Hearing no doorbell sound and no indication that anyone was coming to the door she tried the door knocker instead, which prompted a cease in at least one conversation she couldn't make out and the sounds of someone coming to the door.
"Oh, hello Miss Hebert," Mrs. Pelham said after she had opened the door.
"Hello Mrs. Pelham," Taylor replied. She was recognizable enough,
though Taylor suspected she wouldn't be happy with being called 'Photon Mom' to her face. Or maybe in general, probably best to stay with official names and not unofficial nicknames.
"If you don't mind me asking, why did you use the knocker instead of ringing the doorbell?"
Taylor raised an eyebrow and skipped the verbal answer. Instead she reached over and poked the doorbell button. Nothing happened.
"I see," Mrs. Pelham said, sighing as she gestured for Taylor to come in. "Well, come on in, everyone other than Maul has arrived." She missed Taylor's grin as she led the way to where the other eight parahumans had gathered, which appeared to be a living room a bit larger than the Dallon household had.
"Hello Taylor," Dean said, going to stand up as there really weren't any seats available. Taylor waved him back down and moved behind the couch he was sharing with Amy and Vicky.
"Hi Dean, Amy, Vicky," Taylor replied. "I'm not sure what the protocol is for local celebrities meeting other local celebrities for the first time as far as introductions go?"
That led to a quick round of introductions, with Taylor being told to just use first names for everyone. Taylor reciprocated by telling them to just call her Taylor. She also noted Neil being told that the doorbell was broken again, though the whispering was quiet enough that it was likely nobody else had.
"Anyone want to bet on Maul showing up?" Eric asked. He was confused when the Dallon side of the family, plus Dean and Taylor,
all acquired grins or snickered a little.
"I'm afraid that it would be unfair of me to take any bets on that,"
Taylor said, leaning against the back of the couch between Amy and Dean. "Inside information and all."
"You are a bit unusually connected," Crystal said, poking her brother even as Dean, Amy, and Vicky snickered more. "And you shouldn't be trying to bet."
"What exactly is so funny?" Neil asked. "Because I feel like I am missing something here."
Taylor smirked, and noted that Carol looked like she wanted to say something. Something that she was was holding back. Well, keeping secrets from her sister was probably out of the norm for her. Dean
shrugged when Taylor looked at him, while Amy and Vicky were in the middle of a giggle-fest and thus weren't any help. Meh, the secret could stay secret a bit longer, hadn't she been told that the meeting was after food anyway?
"Since some of us obviously aren't in on the joke," Sarah said,
heading towards the next room. "I believe food was promised, so why don't we eat. Maul can grab something when she gets here, if she comes."
The Pelhams looked a bit annoyed at the renewed snickering and giggling that resulted from that comment, but didn't say anything more. Everyone moved into a dining room that appeared to be capable of seating a slightly cramped twelve. The table was four seats long and two seats wide, which struck Taylor as odd.
Sarah and Crystal moved past the table and through to the kitchen beyond to start bringing food out as everyone else seated themselves. Amy dragged Taylor over and sat her at the end of one side of the table before sitting down in the next seat. Dean took the seat on Amy's other side, with Vicky next to Dean.
Carol sat across from Taylor, with Mark next to her. Eric sat next to Mark as Neil took the seat at the end of the table next to Vicky.
Taylor assumed, correctly, that Crystal would end up next to Eric and Sarah would sit next to Neil. Presumably Maul would sit at one of the two seats between Taylor and Carol, assuming that someone duplicated Taylor or sent her back in time to show up a second time anyway.
"Before you ask," Carol said, gesturing to the table. "The table is normally configured for eight, two to a side. But it expands to twelve with some inserts, which have obviously been put in."
"It did look a bit odd to me," Taylor admitted.
Taylor was quickly informed that 'cape' business wasn't permitted during the meal, which she just as quickly found out did not mean
that cape gossip was prohibited. The Pelhams seemed to be most interested in trading rumors about Maul, which Taylor was a bif iffy on. But Carol actually signaled to Taylor to keep her mouth shut,
apparently having decided that for now the joke was too good to pass up. The fact she kept getting a case of the giggles was decent evidence of that, at least.
As such, Taylor got in on some of the fun herself, commenting on the ridiculousness of some of the sightings as well as general PHO stupidity that shouldn't have even warranted discussion.
"So Taylor," Crystal said after a lull in conversation. "You are on record as having claimed to have met Maul in a locker room. Did you and Maul change at the same time, or was one of you just passing through?"
"I suppose I can admit that so far every visit of mine to a locker room to change where Maul made an appearance Maul was changing as well," Taylor replied. "There aren't that many other reasons to be in them, after all." Cue one round of smirks, snickering, and giggles for Dean and the Dallons, and odd looks from the Pelhams.
"I don't see the humor," Eric finally admitted, turning to his sister. "Do you?"
"Nope," Crystal replied. "There is some kind of joke going on, but I don't know what. I am actually feeling like I should have figured it out by now, but am missing some key piece of information."
Conversation moved on as Dean asked about some issues Eric had been having with his schoolwork, distracting the others from digging further into potential locker room shenanigans.
"Hey Taylor," Eric said a few minutes later. "How many of the Wards have you met?"
"I think I have met all of the current local Wards," Taylor admitted.
"Barring very recent recruitments, anyway."
"In or out of costume?" Eric added, before getting hit by Crystal.
"What? Outside of the three newest ones the rest of New Wave have met them all in and out of costume. Knowing which identities we can relax on around her makes sense."
"Crystal," Sarah said as she poked her daughter. "Your brother is right." Eric beamed. "For once." Eric pouted, though Taylor suspected he would deny it later. "As such the question still stands.
Taylor?"
"I've met all of the current Wards in and out of costume," Taylor said.
"I believe Dean, Gallant fellow that he is and all, can back me up there."
"Huh, that is actually a more subtle reference than most accomplish,"
Dean mused. "Then again, most aren't trying to be subtle. But yes,
Taylor knows the civilian identities of all of the current Wards. I am less certain about Protectorate members, though."
"Haven't bothered trying to get names there, but I'm sure it will come up eventually."
"I find myself very curious how that came about," Neil said, frowning.
"I can't imagine the PRT bending over for your uncle in quite that way? But I also suspect that you couldn't tell us either way."
This led to some musing on PRT rules about identities, both the ones known and suspected, plus how much they were likely dictated locally versus nationally. Overall they couldn't decide if Taylor knowing the identities of the Wards should be odd.
"Since you are so oddly informed, I don't suppose you know why Shadow Stalker up and vanished?" Crystal asked Taylor once they were done their musing. "Assuming you can tell us, anyway. The rumor mill has been inconclusive."
"I do know, but I don't want to talk about it," Taylor replied. "Though that does bring up the question of how many of you know her civilian
identity?"
"Everyone in the room knows about Sophia," Dean answered.
"Though I can say that the Wards don't have the full story on why she vanished, just that she violated her probation. Well, that and a lot of rumors and a single disturbing statement that could be taken a number of ways." Taylor didn't notice the odd look Dean sent Taylor's way.
"Are you saying that Taylor here is more in the loop than Stalker's former teammates?" Eric asked, sounding like that was ridiculous.
"How?"
"I'm not in the mood to talk about it," Taylor said.
That spawned a mini-argument and whining session, because having the first real source of information on that and not getting any information was apparently bullshit. In the middle of that, however,
Dean had apparently slipped his phone out and discreetly texted Taylor.
"Do you plan on revealing yourself today?" Dean's first text message asked.
"Yes" Taylor replied, not sure where this was going.
"Does Sophia's vanishing have to do with your trigger?"
Taylor frowned slightly, but replied. "Yes"
"May I please tell Eric to stop pushing for details on your trigger event?"
Taylor blinked a couple of times. Carol was giving her an odd look,
but nobody else had noticed due to the focus on Eric and the discussion surrounding Sophia's vanishing. Thinking about it,
Taylor's only objection was probably that she didn't have a good way
to take a picture of the looks on their faces. But that wasn't likely to change later. Maybe she should reconsider glasses, if she could get some with a camera in them? Besides, she would probably feel less awkward during the reveal this way. "Go for it."
Dean waited for a lull in the whining slash argument before speaking up. "Eric, you need to stop pushing for Taylor to talk about her trigger event."
"But she's the only... her what?" Eric replied.
The entire Pelham family turned to look at Taylor, who merely raised an eyebrow. Then, as though they had rehearsed it, they performed a synchronized facepalm. Damn her and her lack of a discreet camera!
"That was gold," Amy said, sounding quite smug. Taylor turned and saw that she had apparently pulled her phone out and recorded their reaction. Yes! Now Taylor just needed to get a copy from her.
"No wonder you all kept finding us amusing," Neil said. "Given that we were gossiping about Maul without realizing that Maul was in the room with us."
"What, you don't think I could be Mycroft?" Taylor asked. She got a collection of looks that indicated complete and total disbelief in the entire idea. "Yea, didn't think so. Was worth a shot anyway."
"I suppose that means we can ask about what our powers want from us after all," Crystal said. "Given that your uncle told us that Maul could likely help us with that."
Taylor nodded as she took another bite of her meal. After she swallowed she did have a question for the group. "So, what were you going to do about the meeting if I didn't know at least Dean's cape identity?"
The look on Sarah's face was priceless, but Amy didn't get her phone back out fast enough. "Dammit Carol, you let me make that mistake on purpose, didn't you?"
The actual power discussion was definitely going to fall into post-
meal discussion territory, but Taylor decided to start poking the
snarks at the table now while Carol and Sarah were in the middle of their argument. She started with Vicky, maybe offering to help would make the pain in the ass snark less annoyed with her?
Is there anything you want your human to do differently?
[Agreement]
Besides punching me more often?
[Apathy]
Well, so much for that. Moving on she poked Neil's snark next.
Hello! Is there anything you want your human to do differently?
[Excitement. Data]
Huh, batteries? Interesting.
Taylor considered that as she continued to eat. She supposed it made some sense. She moved on, poking at Sarah's snark as Eric tried to derail the argument between the two sisters by complaining about being unable to use his shields in dodgeball at school.
Hello! Is there anything you want your human to do differently?
[Dismissal]
Ok, apparently not. Less rude than wanting to punch Taylor, though.
Maybe Crystal's would have more to say?
Hello! Is there anything you want your human to do differently?
[Data]
Huh, ok. I can see that.
Taylor wondered if Eric's snark felt the same way, but in reverse. She moved on to poking his snark to find out.
Hello! Is there anything you want your human to do differently?
[Agreement]
I thought that might be the case.
Yep. Pretty much the exact opposite of Crystal's. Finished with the Pelham family, Taylor moved onto the elder Dallons. Since she had been moving down the table anyway she poked Mark's snark next.
Hello! Is there anything you want your human to do differently?
That was starting to feel really repetitive, now that Taylor thought about it. But it was working, so she probably shouldn't mess with it.
[Excitement]
Ok, yea, I guess you would be happy that he is actually using you now.
Not much there, which left Carol's.
Hello! Is there anything you want your human to do differently?
[Agreement. Data. Elaboration. Data]
Ok, I can see some of that. Don't get other bits, but I'll try and explain it when we get to that.
That... was weird in some ways. Taylor hoped she would be able to explain it when the time came.
"So Taylor," Crystal said, having just lightly slapped her brother for complaining that none of the Wards hung out with him at school.
Which had been enough to get Sarah and Carol to stop arguing. Or maybe the two had just run out of steam for the moment. "I don't suppose you have any insight on powers running in families? We have a mix of seeing that and not seeing that in New Wave."
Taylor blinked at that, and looked over the snarks at the table. "As odd as it seems, I think Mark and Amy are unique amongst the group of you. Neil's snark seems to have a lot in common with Vicky's, but Vicky's also has some bits that look like Dean's? Sarah,
Crystal, Eric, and Carol all look similar as well."
Data
What? Really? Huh. Think I should report that?
Agreement. Data
"Apparently snarks have kids too," Taylor continued, pulling her Maul phone out. "And they tend to gravitate towards those that their hosts are emotionally protective of and that depend on the hosts in turn?
And the kids sometimes reach out to those that their new hosts are close to in order to copy bits. Gimme a moment to write this up before I forget."
Taylor propped the phone up in front of her before looking up the 'insight into powers' form and filled it out. There were multiple raised eyebrows as she did so, given that she was still eating as she did so,
and thus not touching the phone.
Anything else you think I should add?
Contemplation
"I thought you were going to write something?" Crystal finally said.
"Not stare at your phone?"
"Oh, right, I was caught in a tinker fugue," Taylor said. "I've got secure Bluetooth plugged into my brain."
Data
That... seems like a not quite correct metaphor. I'll give it a try anyway.
Taylor ignored the flinching from the Pelhams as she continued.
"Apparently when a snark has a kid it sometimes fails to be born and connects back to their host. I think there is something being lost in translation there, though."
"Could it be closer to mitosis than birth?" Carol offered. "Splitting off,
but the split fails sometimes?"
What do you think, is mitosis a better description than birth?
Agreement
"That seems closer," Taylor said, noting that Carol had provided that insight on the form. "Thanks."
Those revelations had gotten everyone thinking and as a result had pretty much killed the smalltalk. Taylor spent some time tweaking the language in her insight report, correcting language as her snark indicated things were slightly off. Eventually they were both happy enough with what was written and Taylor submitted the form. The 'thank you' page informed her that her insight had been added to the queue and she would receive notice of what, if any, information bounty money she was due once it had been evaluated.
By that point everyone had basically finished eating. Eric and Neil had apparently drawn cleanup duty and would be clearing the dishes from the table before the meeting. The rest of them moved into the living room, as the meeting apparently largely informal. Taylor ended up on the couch this time as Dean brought a chair in from the dining room, with a couple of eyebrows raised at Taylor plopping down
between Amy and Vicky. Her sling bag was moved from her side,
where she had even left it during dinner, to her lap.
"Aren't you at all uncomfortable sitting next to Vicky?" Crystal asked.
"I mean, given how badly she hurt you?"
"I honestly don't remember that," Taylor admitted, shrugging. "I highly doubt it is going to be repeated anytime soon either."
"No plans to repeat it here," Vicky said. "Well, not from me at least. If I understand things correctly, my power likely disagrees."
"Yea, your snark keeps hoping you'll kill me."
Vicky flinched at that, making Taylor think she shouldn't have been quite that blunt. Oh well, a bit late now.
"I hereby call the meeting to order," Sarah said after Neil and Eric had come in and plopped down. "Since most of the reason for this meeting was trying to come up with ways to use our powers better,
or perhaps satisfy our powers, I'm hoping that Taylor has some information for us."
"Sarah and Mark are good for now," Taylor started. "Dean I am working on prerequisites for, and Amy's snark is plenty happy now that she has her greenhouse."
"Well at least there is some good news," Carol said. "What about the rest of us?"
"Well, Crystal and Eric should apparently be trying to figure out how to use what they are strong in to bolster what they are weak in?"
"How would that work?" Eric asked. "I mean, shields don't lend themselves to helping with flying or offense."
"Can you fly on a shield?" Taylor asked, holding a hand out and miming standing on it with the fingers of her other hand. "Or use
shields to control or redirect attacks of others to direct them where you want them to go instead of just stopping them?"
"Huh, that is actually an interesting idea," Eric said, obviously thinking. He started manifesting shields shaped and angled in different ways, likely trying to visualize what he wanted.
"What about me?" Crystal asked.
"The redirecting bit could help you too," Vicky said, having obviously gotten somewhat into the mindset needed. "If you don't have to stop an attack, just deflect it, your shield shouldn't need to be as strong.
Thinking about it, I could probably do that myself, might help me recover more quickly."
"What about shooting down attacks before they can reach you?" Neil added. "Or perhaps deflecting incoming attacks with your own so they don't hit you or your teammates? Use your offense as defense."
"Done right you could probably bounce some of your own attacks off of Eric's shields," Dean contributed. "Allow for the more powerful beam to come from an unexpected angle, or perhaps allowing what would have been a missed shot to hit someone from behind."
"I think we know what you two are working on in our next practice session," Sarah said. "For that matter, some of that sounds useful enough that I will probably be joining you."
"Moving on," Taylor said before they could go too far in discussing things, she wasn't in the mood to stick around all night after all.
"Neil's snark seems to think that playing with rechargeable batteries would be interesting. Storing energy in them and pulling energy out,
maybe? I didn't quite get what it was trying to say, and snarks don't exactly speak English so concepts don't always translate well."
"Batteries?" Neil said. "Really? I mean, sometimes I do the whole electrical discharge on contact bit, but I can't see that working well with a battery."
"I think part of the goal might be figuring out how to fine-tune things enough to not break them," Taylor offered, shrugging. "Not really sure, but perhaps you should expect a lot of failure at first. I'd wear protective equipment at least, in case they explode on you."
"I was going to say something about my power shielding me, but I suspect that if my power is causing the explosion then the battery may already be inside my shield. So protective gear sounds like a good idea."
"I am fairly certain that none of us would have come up with that one," Carol admitted. "Which makes me wonder what my power wants."
"I think it wants three different things," Taylor said. "Though I suspect you won't be all that enthused with some of it. In particular, the bit where you would play the part of the cue ball in a pool game or get yourself down to pinball size and bounce around in a pinball machine."
Everyone stared at Taylor, trying to figure out if they had just misheard her. Finally Carol spoke up, blushing slightly. "I suppose that might explain some of the things I have dreamt about, but I don't think I would ever have the patience to actually do them."
"Yea, didn't think so. Moving on, it also thinks you are lazy in using your hard-light objects, not giving them proper detail and all that. And not finding new ones to create every so often, like maybe using your power to make a pool cue?"
"Ok, yes. I can see how my power would want me to use it in new ways like that, not just in a fight."
"Finally, it wants to know why you never peel the surface layers of forcefield off to make things when in your breaker state."
Carol went to answer that one before stopping, obviously thinking. A moment later she had shifted to her breaker state and fallen to the
floor, before the surface of her ball unfolded into sheet. One end of the sheet then lifted so that the remaining ball rolled down it. A moment later she had reformed, already in a facepalm. "How did I never think to try that before? I mean, it theoretically lowers my defense, but the sheer utility alone..."
"Like making a handle for one of us to grab onto when flying?" Sarah offered. Carol collapsed back into her seat, staring off into the distance as she contemplated things.
For the next few minutes everyone was silent, most of New Wave thinking or, in the case of Crystal and Eric, visualizing things with their powers. Finally Sarah sighed.
"So, that is one thing we needed to do," Sarah said. "Thank you Taylor, your insight will hopefully help us quite a bit. The other thing we need to do is figure out what to do about Vicky. The PRT's reluctance to have her patrolling with the Wards at random makes sense now, as she could end up on the same patrol as Taylor here at any time."
"I kinda want Taylor to whack Vicky one in public just to see how PHO reacts," Amy said, causing a few looks of confusion. "Taylor's the one that gave her the bruises and bloody nose?"
"Her stupid power lets her bypass my forcefield whenever she wants," Vicky grumbled.
"Can you bypass any forcefields?" Eric asked. "Or just Vicky's?"
"Er, I suspect I can bypass Neil's protections," Taylor said, thinking about it. "Especially if I am right about Vicky's snark being Neil's snark's kid. The hard light ones may be solid enough that I can't?"
"What do you need to test that?" Sarah asked. "Because that seems like something very good to know either way."
Taylor pulled her foam baton out of her sling bag and gave it a couple of swings to ensure it had expanded properly. Then projected it and lightly hit Vicky in the face.
"Hey!" Vicky yelled. "At least warn me, would ya?"
"Anyone want to play test subject?" Taylor asked, grinning at her demonstration.
Crystal and Eric popped up forcefields immediately. Taylor tried to bop Eric but could tell it had hit his forcefield. Crystal's was less effective and Taylor was able to hit Crystal instead, as evidenced by her flinching on impact.
"Interesting," Sarah said, throwing her own forcefield up. "Can you hit me through mine?"
Taylor swung at Sarah and was stopped by her forcefield. "Doesn't look it, I think it has to do with how dense the hard light is in them and Crystal's isn't dense enough."
"I won't bother having you test my shields, as I already know they are comparable to Sarah's," Carol said. She then gestured at Vicky and Taylor sitting next to each other. "We still need to determine what to do about things with the Wards. Ideally Vicky needs more patrol time, but she can't constantly join the adult members of New Wave or the Protectorate due to frankly idiotic Youth Guard rules regarding exposing minor capes to adult cape situations. So she really needs to join the Wards on patrol more often, but the PRT is blocking it."
"You do realize that the Wards tend to be sent on routes that avoid fighting, right?" Taylor asked. "How will going on those patrols help?"
Dean snorted back a laugh. "You've barely gone on any patrols and still been shot, beaten up a group of ABB gangsters, and been hit by one of Squealer's vehicles, all on the supposedly safer patrol routes.
You were shot on the boardwalk, so that should indicate how safe
things actually are around here. If we can get them to let Vicky join you and Carlos you can probably patrol deeper into the docks and run into more trouble. The problem is that they don't want to put her on patrol with you due to the punch incident."
"Ok, I get it," Taylor said, holding her hands up as if to ward Dean off.
"I don't suppose anyone has looked up the rules for underage affiliates joining patrols in the first place?"
"I've gone over the affiliate side of things," Sarah said. "Vicky's probation forbids unofficially joining the patrols as she needs to have official oversight. But the PRT has to approve her joining the patrols,
which is where our problem lies right now. They won't authorize our requests right now."
"Hold up," Amy said. "This sounds suspiciously like something we already deal with from the other side. We generally dictate that hospitals outside of town can't request that I visit, but I can request to visit any hospital that I want to. So can we turn this around and have the Wards ask for Vicky to join them on patrol?"
Taylor and Dean looked at each other and both pulled out a phone.
"You look for the rules and I'll look for forms?" Dean offered.
"Works for me," Taylor replied.
A few minutes later Dean spoke up. "So, it looks like there is a simple form that the Wards leader can fill out at any time to request that underage members of an affiliate group join in on specific patrols. Or rather, there should be, because I don't have access to it."
"It looks like the PRT has to provide solid reasoning for denying such a request, assuming the affiliate group approves," Taylor added.
"Though those reasons can include the requests being made too frequently or poor behavior on the part of the affiliate member. I
suspect it will go over better if Carlos specifically aims for Vicky joining on patrols that I won't be on?"
"Perhaps he could justify the first couple with wanting added support on aerial routes?"
"Yea, ease in by starting with routes that I couldn't join on, maybe target days I am not patrolling due to added classes as well?"
"Someday I will find out what some of those classes are, but otherwise that is a good idea. I'll let Carlos know about it as he knew I was going to be here to talk about the scheduling issues anyway."
The meeting shifted into a more general discussion of a few other things, like public perception of things that had been going on. This included getting basics of what had happened at Cornell out of Amy and Taylor and a review of people's schedules for the coming week.
Taylor was asked to join Amy at the hospital Friday afternoon and evening to help provide support in the event of issues stemming from the pre-weekend rush of people, panicky in-the-know locals being cleared out for the influx of people coming in from out of town.
The fact that this was a thing that needed doing made Taylor feel like an idiot for not having known about these weekends before, but she didn't bother to say so.
Last month Carol and Sarah had taken over that role from Vicky, who used to do it but wasn't allowed to now with her probation. This month other obligations were interfering, hence the request. Taylor put it down as a request on her schedule and indicated that she would let the others know later, only to be told that the PRT should notify them if the response was positive, so Taylor only needed to let them know if it was rejected.
The last thing everyone did was trade phone numbers, ensuring that Taylor had all of New Wave in both of her phones and that New Wave all had her two phone numbers as well. Which basically
amounted to Taylor providing her numbers, as it didn't take long to discover that she had an entire 'New Wave' category in her Maul phone. Following that everyone left for their various afternoon and early evening activities, with Taylor in particular heading home to hopefully see her father.
Last edited: Nov 24, 2017
Chapter 36 Monday morning Taylor escaped the house before her father was up,
ostensibly to hit the gym because she hadn't since the previous week. In reality she just wanted to escape the awkwardness that had permeated the house the night before. She had gotten lectured for a couple of hours about how her father should not find out that his daughter was in another state by seeing her on the news. He did not like that Taylor herself hadn't communicated anything to him until they got back. The fact that his own plans for the weekend had prevented them from running into each other until Sunday night had just let him build up to the rant more.
The awkward part started when the lecturing slash complaining was interrupted by her father's phone ringing. It turned out to be Miss Militia, apologizing on behalf of Armsmaster, who was supposed to have gotten Danny's permission before contacting Taylor in the first place. That revelation had resulted in Danny feeling like a jerk for yelling at Taylor, since it meant that Armsmaster calling Taylor at all implied that Danny had already been asked and approved. Taylor, on the other hand, felt that she still should have sent her father a message either way. So they both felt guilty.
Once she arrived at the gym Taylor was surprised to find that non-
parahumans were working out in the secret area. She had luckily
entered from the public gym today, so they saw little problem with her presence once they realized she was Jacob's niece. Then again,
it was nice to know that her expected use of that as an excuse for how she got access worked. They explained that they were specialists passing through Brockton Bay for an 'evaluation' of some kind later that day. Apparently they had been told that the Wards don't usually use the gym in the morning on school days, even if they were technically cleared to know the identities of the Wards themselves.
Just to play things safe Taylor kept to normal human levels of workout and made a show of primarily taking advantage of the pool,
which was not something available in the public gym. The others seemed to think that was a good enough reason to be in the secret area, beyond the privacy aspects for a local celebrity anyway.
Once she arrived at school Taylor found that the day's preferred gossip was about the weekend visit to Cornell and what it meant.
Amy had refused to provide details on pretty much anything, and when they asked Taylor for gossip they were in turn asked what she was supposed to know about a trip that only parahumans had gone on.
This continued into her parahuman studies class, which went into detail about what was known about the injuries the tinkertech had inflicted. The following discussion was on why things had happened in the first place, with a likely self-destruct mechanism being decided upon as the most likely reason for the initial explosion. Taylor agreed, kinda, as bombs in general could be said to be designed to self-destruct. Right?
Come lunchtime Amy appeared to be using Taylor, Vicky, and Dennis as shields from the rest of the school. That didn't work all that well,
the end result being that the three got dragged into the gossip over what various things meant.
"Come on," one student whined. "Can't you tell us anything? They said a student was taken off campus because of exposure to dangerous tinkertech!"
That wasn't anything that hadn't been answered with variations of 'no clue', 'if I knew then I could not tell you anyway', and just ignoring it a number of times already. In the past ten minutes. Dennis and Vicky were visibly annoyed, and Amy looked like she actually wanted to punch someone. Taylor had been giving a possible explanation some thought and decided to throw it out there.
"You know," Taylor said, getting the student's attention. "If you think about it there aren't that many options. The only two I can think of are that the student's brain could have been messed with, which Amy couldn't have fixed, or they got too close to a tinker in a fugue state." Ok, how in the world is it that everyone flinches at that kind of reference? Taylor didn't think it should be that widespread. Did she miss some well publicised fugue victim? "And even if Amy does know which it is, which she may not, it would almost certainly fall under doctor/patient privilege."
The most annoying part about that working was that it didn't seem to work because it was logical, if technically a lie by omission. Of course not, logic has no place in the gossip chain. It apparently only worked because Jacob's niece said it. Taylor thus spent the rest of the school day grumbling about idiots. The fact that the same reasoning caused it to be accepted on PHO despite posters having shot down four other people suggesting the same thing previously just made Taylor's grumbling worse.
Today's patrol schedule had Taylor on the evening patrol with Missy.
Through the boardwalk. Taylor suspected that this was an intentional 'look, it is a safe route with the longest serving member of the Wards'
move for the benefit of the Youth Guard. Before that, however, she had a meeting, which led her to sitting in a conference room with Armsmaster and Miss Militia, waiting for Director Piggot and whomever it was that had requested the meeting.
As part of distracting herself from idiots, Taylor had taken some notes on the chairs today, given that she had yet to find any other ones that had backs and were still suitable for sitting in without removing the weapons from her jacket. Even the console chair in the Wards area didn't quite work with the wok, but she could admittedly just not wear the weapons on console. A quick check had shown these chairs were available in the PRT store and were rated for more weight than a normal chair, but not to the point where power armor
like Armsmaster's could be worn. He sat in a much stronger looking chair as a result.
Huh, maybe Dean and Chris needed the current console chair due to running it in their own power armor? That chair did seem to be similar to the one Armsmaster was sitting in. Maybe they could get a second chair so that those without armor would be more comfortable when running the console. Or for general meeting use when the Wards had one.
"Good afternoon," Director Piggot said as she came in, leading another woman and breaking Taylor's train of thought. "Maul, I would like to introduce you to the ENE Youth Guard Liaison, Mrs. Cooper."
"Good afternoon Director, Mrs. Cooper," Taylor said.
"Good afternoon Maul, Armsmaster, Miss Militia," Mrs. Cooper replied as she sat down, placing two folders in front of her. "I called this meeting to determine why a Ward that had been put off of active duty due to an injury was seen out of state in an official capacity."
She then held her hand up as Armsmaster and Miss Militia both looked like they wanted to answer. "In this case I would like to hear what Maul believes the excuse to be, not what official reasoning others have."
"I don't recall being taken off of active duty at all," Taylor said, pulling her Maul phone out even as she used her visor to bring up the calendar on it. "My schedule specifically listed a block on patrols,
both initially by the PRT and then extended by the Youth Guard."
Taylor handed her phone over so Mrs. Cooper could see that.
"Beyond that, I was apparently specifically requested by Panacea to be her honor guard, which as I understand things was more to have someone she could relate to around than for any actual security. As such there was no expectation of combat, and if any such incidents occurred they were supposed to be handled by the Protectorate members on-site."
Mrs. Cooper looked at the calendar on Taylor's phone, then checked some of the paperwork in one of the folders. She scowled as she likely confirmed that the order had been no patrols and not being off of active duty. Next to her Director Piggot looked smug, apparently enjoying getting one over on the Youth Guard.
Finally Mrs. Cooper pushed Taylor's phone back across the table. "I see, I suppose that neither you nor the PRT can be blamed for a mistake on the Youth Guard's side of things. You should have been taken off of active duty with exceptions for the press conference and your apparent non-physical testing session instead of dealing with things by only taking you off of patrols."
"May I ask why I should have been taken off of active duty?"
"You had a severe injury while on patrol, one that without Panacea's help would have taken weeks to months to heal. For the stress of such an injury alone you should have been taken off of active duty."
Taylor sent a message to Amy asking how long she thought it would have taken Taylor to heal from her Squealer Surprise on her own,
with a note saying that the Youth Guard rep was thinking weeks to months. "With all due respect, why do you think that would be the case?"
"Our reviews and checks with experts indicated that the amount of force required to cause the dislocation as described would have also shattered at least one bone and caused severe internal injuries."
Mrs. Cooper pulled several sheets out of one of her folders. "I have copies of the report that was compiled here, if you don't believe me."
Taylor took a copy, as did Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and Director Piggot. She read over it, noting the calculations of total force likely applied when she was clipped. That was followed by how much damage that would have caused with and without armored clothing and a summary of what it would have taken to heal. They all looked fine for a normal human, given that she had very little experience or training in that kind of thing. As she neared the end she got her
answer from Amy, indicating three days or so, four if Taylor hadn't taken it easy.
"This looks to be accurate for a baseline human," Armsmaster said.
putting the report down. "Maul is not a baseline human. Where is the version that takes that into account?"
"The summary of her powers makes no indication that they grant Maul enhanced durability of any kind," Mrs. Cooper said, pulling another sheet out. "Unless you have deliberately withheld information from the Youth Guard regarding her powers?"
"Is the Youth Guard aware that I was the subject of a tinker fugue before I joined the Wards?" Taylor asked. "Oh, and Panacea says I would have fully healed in three or four days. I was walking,
admittedly painfully, before Panacea even reached the scene."
"She hasn't been officially tested on the tinker fugue enhancements,"
Miss Militia added. "But we believe she is generally bullet-proof for normal handgun calibers of bullet. We do know that normal tasers don't work on her due to the toughness of her skin and wireless tinkertech tasers just cause her discomfort."
"I mentioned some of this to the Youth Guard when I reported that she had been indirectly shot while unofficially on patrol with other Wards," Armsmaster said. "I would have thought your file on Maul would have been updated at that time."
"If that is the case then why has there been no official record of the tinker fugue itself?" Mrs. Cooper asked, looking over the paper she had pulled out. "Surely the fact it happened was recorded somewhere? I see nothing about it in the summary on her physical abilities."
"It happened after I triggered but before I joined the Wards," Taylor replied. "There is nothing that asks about that in the joining packet.
The only relevant official forms only apply if the fugue happened before I triggered, if the fugue was part of my trigger event. Well, that
or if the fugue happened after I joined the Wards, but that is a different matter entirely."
"The power testers should have checked for that kind of thing,"
Director Piggot added. "But they didn't. Until a year has passed or we have a better reason to test her again that isn't an official option anymore. I have attached notes to her file regarding things, including ensuring that they are visible to the Youth Guard, but I suspect you don't normally check the notes when building your internal summaries."
Mrs. Cooper frowned and checked more of the paperwork she had with her. "I see that I will need to initiate a proper review of Maul's file. I apologize for calling this meeting without proper information.
Assuming everything you just said checks out and our independent checks with Panacea regarding the severity of the injury match what you have said this will be the last you hear from us on this. However,
as we are already here I would like to talk about your grades."
Taylor was confused, as she didn't think that her grades were a problem right now. Director Piggot looked just as confused, so Taylor could at least feel better about not having a clue. A moment later Mrs. Cooper slid several sheets over to Taylor, passing a copy to Director Piggot as well. Taylor looked over the papers, seeing that they were an overall summary of her grades. Nothing was jumping out at her as a bad thing, though.
"I am not seeing a problem with her current grades," Director Piggot said, putting down the copy she had been handed. "They are all within the range expected of both Arcadia itself and the Wards program."
"The larger concerns we have are her declining test scores in a couple of classes, primarily History and Chemistry," Mrs. Cooper replied. "Her bonus points for early homework completion have balanced them out for now, but if the trend continues she will start failing tests. Her other classes have a much less pronounced dip that can easily be attributed to her hospital visit."
"I wasn't studying as much as I should have because I had all my homework done in advance," Taylor admitted. "History in particular with a large percentage of it needing me to remember specific facts and chemistry with chemical and element names. I recently 'caught up' to the point I had done homework in advance for so I am hoping that my scores will balance out and improve."
"Yes, well, as Director Piggot said, it isn't a problem yet. The only other concern we have is your lack of improvement in your physical education classes. So far it is being explained by virtue of you seeming to end up in the hospital every couple of months."
"My understanding is that I am supposed to be holding back?" Taylor stood up and placed her jacket, with weapons, on the table. "Given that I wear this most of the time when I am in costume I think you can see that I need to."
Mrs. Cooper tried to pick up Taylor's jacket and failed, merely dragging it a little bit across the table. She looked down at it, then up at Taylor. "I see. I will have to ensure that the review of your file includes adding a note indicating you are hiding physical enhancements. From that point of view your physical education classes are probably going perfectly, but we may send you recommendations to help you blend in better. Specifically, I am unsure if you are currently performing at a level that is too low on the bell curve, but I am sure someone will be in touch if you are."
Taylor put her jacket back on as Mrs. Cooper collected her paperwork. "Is there anything else?"
"No, thank you for your time and I again apologize for the incorrect information that resulted in the meeting being called." The other four watched as Mrs. Cooper collected her paperwork and left. As soon as the door had closed Director Piggot sighed before grinning. "I hate these meetings, but legitimately coming out on top is always nice."
"Indeed," Miss Militia said. "Now then, shall we summon Triumph for the next meeting?"
"Triumph?" Taylor asked, confused. Why would Triumph need to meet with her? She only met him two days ago.
"I will send him up on my way out," Armsmaster said as he got up.
"With any luck my simulations will have completed before I get back to my lab."
"I need to get back to work myself," Director Piggot said, getting up as well. "Not sure what Triumph wants with you, but he agreed to meeting you with Miss Militia in the room. Have a nice day and good luck with whatever it is Triumph wants. And do try and keep your test scores from slipping any more."
"Hello Maul, Miss Militia," Triumph said as he entered the room,
closing and security-sealing the door behind him.
"Good afternoon Triumph," Miss Militia said, accidentally drowning out Taylor's own hello.
Triumph came over and sat down across from them, then sighed.
"First off, Maul, I would like to apologize for Saturday. In my defense,
your access levels are bullshit for a Ward and by the time you had arrived there was a lock on your file."
Oh, right, she had locked her file, hadn't she? Taylor thought about that for a minute. "Sorry about that, but I am surprised you hadn't looked at my file already. I only asked for the lock on the way back from Cornell."
"Out of curiosity," Miss Militia interrupted. "Why did you request a lock on your file?"
"Vivian has an extra-large ego, so I challenged her to figure out my civilian name and how I was using my devices without touching
them," Taylor explained. "Ensuring she couldn't just open my file when she got access to the PRT database seemed prudent."
"That would explain the scream of frustration this morning," Triumph said, chuckling a little. "Nice one." Miss Militia nodded in agreement.
"At any rate, I did skim your file when you first joined, but it was barely started then. Your powers weren't even listed yet. I still shouldn't have assumed anything. In fact, with your file being locked I should have run with the assumption that you didn't need help until proven otherwise. That and I was acting quite full of myself either way."
"Apology accepted," Taylor said. "Though I don't know why you had to secure the door for that."
"Ah, right, this next part needs a bit more explanation," Triumph said,
taking his helmet off. "To start with, I'm Rory Christner. I wanted to extend my thanks and the thanks of my father for helping out my cousin Dinah. I have no idea what you did, but she was much happier at dinner yesterday. Oddly disappointed at the chances of snow in the near future, but happier. She and her parents insisted that her improvements were because of a meeting with you, as Taylor, so thank you."
"You're welcome. I noticed her problem during the press conference for Grue and Mycroft and wouldn't have felt right if I didn't do anything about it. Do you know if they have decided anything?"
"They didn't tell me much, but they will be pulling Dinah out of school, apparently switching her over to homeschooling." Rory then pulled a business card out and handed it to Taylor. Taking a look she noted that there was a number written on the back. "Dinah has a new phone and asked whomever in the family saw you next to give you her number, that is the number written on the back. The front is my uncle's contact information. Apparently they misplaced your phone number over the weekend."
Taylor thought about that and realized that there was a very good chance that neither side of the family had been told that the other had a parahuman at all. So both sides were likely dancing around secrets that the other would understand, and Taylor wasn't actually supposed to reveal things either way unless Dinah was applying to join the Wards. A minimal amount of thought gave her a way that might subtly push for Dinah to reveal things, without violating any rules. So as to not forget to later she sent Dinah a text message with a question.
"I'll do my best to stay in touch with her," Taylor replied, adding Dinah to her contact list before flipping the card over and adding Mr.
Alcott's information as well. She then fired a text message off to him informing him that it was her, ensuring he had her number as well.
"Is there anything else?"
"I don't believe so," Rory said, putting his helmet back on. "I have to get out on patrol. Do let me know if you need anything I can help with, though."
Dinah looked at her phone and the apparent message from Taylor.
"Chance that telling Rory about my power will help me? Why is she asking that." Deciding that her headache was running low enough to answer the question she poked the mental button in her head.
"97.1935812582 percent?" After waiting a moment for the pain to settle down to the normal background level she got up. Her parents were working on filling out the forms needed for her homeschooling,
but they would likely want to know about this.
Taylor and Missy made their way down the boardwalk, chatting about the Cornell campus while keeping an ear on the radio chatter from the other patrol groups. Chris and Dean were trying out Taylor's idea of pairing them for a spy sweep and were discussing with the console what to do about their first potential hit. Which, if Taylor or her father had been doing things, would be an intentional plant as a test, but who knows what others would be thinking. Dennis was with
Brian, the two having run into a couple of drug deals right as Taylor and Missy were leaving, but not much else since. And Carlos was taking advantage of his status as Wards leader to run a solo patrol.
Well, officially he was running a solo patrol. The fact that he was patrolling the aerial route above the boardwalk hinted at unofficial monitoring and/or support to keep the Youth Guard happy. He also kept dipping low enough to hit the upper edge of Taylor's range,
followed by moving back up again a few moments later, showing he was moving at the same rate they were. Perhaps he was used to flying lower, but was aiming to stay unnoticed? His movement back up was usually faster, as though he realized he was drifting too low.
Taylor and Missy had stopped to grab a drink from a water fountain when three Asian men came out of the crowd of people next to them.
Taylor turned to ask if she could help them, only for the lead man to punch her. Taylor instinctively retaliated with a knee to the man's groin. The resulting crunch was satisfying, and the man collapsed in pain.
The other two men had moved to go around the first to grab Taylor from the sides. One of them was used as a landing pad by Carlos as Missy enhanced a crack in the paving stones around the drinking fountains to create a trip hazard for the other. Well, it would have likely caught both if Carlos hadn't stopped one of them first. Taylor pinned the man that had tripped before pulling a couple of pairs of zip-cuffs out of her utility belt. One set went onto the man she had pinned, and then the other onto the man who had punched her. The latter took a little more effort as he didn't want to stop grabbing his crotch.
"I wonder what that was about," Taylor asked as Missy called things in. Carlos had zip-cuffed the man he had landed on.
"Not sure," Carlos answered. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if this is an attempted revenge for the group you put in the hospital last month. Kinda stupid of them to do so on the Boardwalk, though."
Ten minutes later the three men had been picked up by the police and the three Wards continued on their way, Carlos no longer pretending to not be following their route. Taylor was expressing annoyance that she didn't have an opportunity to use her power due to the short length of the 'fight' while the other two snickered.
The three Wards had nearly reached the turnaround point for the patrol when they were approached by a group of teenagers. A nervous group of teenagers, but they didn't seem hostile.
"Er, hello," one of the teenagers said. "Um, Maul?"
"Hello," Taylor responded. "What's up?"
"We are wondering, um, why 'Maul'? You don't seem to maul people or anything, and you didn't really answer when asked on PHO."
"I am going with the noun, not the verb."
Taylor got a look of incomprehension on the part of the teenagers.
Then again, it took long enough for someone to ask her in person.
PHO had been content to argue about the 'Why not?' answer until the entire thing derailed into something else. Still, in an attempt to clear things up she reached over her shoulder and grabbed her maul, pulling it out.
"Say hello to Maul's maul," Missy said, gesturing at the maul. She was obviously enjoying herself.
"Where the hell did she hide that?" one of the teenagers muttered.
"It's as tall as she is."
"Maybe she made it with her power?" another answered. Taylor didn't bother to let them know she could hear them, and instead occupied herself with wondering how long it would be before this would hit PHO. And if PHO would believe it without photographic proof, which nobody seemed to be trying to get. Seriously, aren't
teenagers supposed to be attached to their phones and constantly taking pictures? Even non-smartphones usually had cameras at this point.
Taylor answered some questions about her maul for a few minutes,
then the three Wards begged off to continue their patrol. A couple minutes after that they reached their turnaround point. Taylor used her jump harness to move up to roof level via bouncing back and forth in an alley, then roof-hopped. Missy repeatedly violated spacetime to get up to the same roof and then move across the rooftops. Carlos, however, continued following them from the air.
Because he could fly. Taylor wasn't sure if she should be jealous of that or not.
They were halfway back to the PRT building when Taylor saw the new thread on PHO. The first post explained that Maul had shown them her maul and answered a few questions, most of which were correctly represented. And the second post was 'pics or you are a liar', because PHO was still on the internet. Then again, the thread claiming that perhaps Maul should have been named 'Nut Shot' after all had already had the video clips several people had posted removed. Apparently the audible crunch was too much?
Tuesday morning Taylor continued to try and avoid awkwardness with her father after a near-silent night at home, only to find that he had beaten her out of the house when she opened the garage door to leave and his car wasn't there. Apparently the avoidance was mutual for the moment. It was also probably unhealthy, so they really should do something about it, not that Taylor knew what. So she made her way to the gym, since she was up and ready. She was pleasantly surprised that this morning Amy was approaching as she parked, and more so when the secret gym was empty of 'specialists'.
"You should swing by my house at some point in the next couple of days," Amy said as they changed. "I finally figured out the rose bushes. I even got the PRT to take a look and approve them leaving
my greenhouse, so you can take one for home and another for your Wards room."
"Cool. Not sure about the Wards room, I really only change in there,
so no real need for a plant that needs taking care of. Speaking of which, I wonder if there are any tinkertech watering and feeding solutions available?" Taylor wondered, tapping her chin. "Because that would be nice."
"Not that I know of."
"Damned tinkers, only generating improvements by leaps and bounds in certain technological fields. If Dragon hasn't bothered to reverse engineer it then chances are it is moving slower than before tinkers."
"Yea, well, there is a reason a lot of companies end up doing their
best to obtain information from their Aleph counterparts on non-
tinkertech manufacturing whenever possible. Though supposedly our
cell phones use a better system than Aleph's due to some early tinker and thinker involvement, but Aleph can't implement ours because it can't be made backwards compatible with theirs."
"How in the world do you know that?"
"Class project back in November comparing how Aleph technology differs from what we have here on Bet. One of the other groups got assigned cell phones and mentioned that in their presentation. My group was tasked with comparing the internet on both sides. We were shocked when we found out that outside of wireless tinkertech Aleph's overall end-user connectivity is much better. Though we decided that is probably because their societies are a lot more stable so they have time to actually build local infrastructure."
"I see. So, roses. How does Thursday look for you for me to pick one up as me? I think I am busy tomorrow, Wednesday, and of course Friday."
"Works for me, I am already barred from the hospital on Thursday in anticipation of the time I am spending there from Friday afternoon through the end of Sunday."
The two made their way through their workout, chatting about whatever else came to mind, before cleaning up and heading off to school.
Taylor had checked after arriving at school and found that Amy was right and that there were no tinkertech watering systems available from the PRT. Paying more attention to what was available led to categorizing things. The PRT had also nicely done so, making it easier once she noticed that. Even if some things seemed to be in the wrong categories because they were intended to be used in specific ways.
Weapons, shields, and armor were generally fairly advanced and varied, which made sense given how often parahumans fought.
Wireless communications and computers were the next most common thing, though a lot of that was only so widespread due to Dragon. As an example there, the two older PCs that had been brought to the dockworkers by her father had been snapped up quickly as they were still fairly advanced for non-tinkertech construction. That side of the industry was not moving all that fast due to global trade having declined.
After that tinker-enhanced items available for purchase got a bit more spotty. She found what she believed was the base model for her moped, key operated instead of access key operated and advertised based on tinkertech motors. That version required frequent charging of batteries. The upgrade to install a different tinker's generator was prohibitively expensive and had a limited supply, though the 'or using one owed favor' line indicated an alternate method her uncle might have used. A quick check of other things showed that transportation in general seemed to be an issue due to maintenance needs, if the note on the flying transports that
could be purchased for PRT or Protectorate regions needing to be maintained by a proper tinker monthly was any indication.
The anti-grav units Taylor had mentioned to Missy and the comfort system she had at home were apparently oddities in the mix. The latter was apparently derived from a prisoner containment system and the full version was supposed to be able to keep capes from generating temperature extremes, with the adjustable lighting and other details being intended for various other concerns. It even included hookups to trigger containment foam sprayers. The home theater she had gotten from Coil's stores fell more into the communication and computers category, for those parts that were tinkertech at all.
Based on what Taylor was seeing, should Dragon figure out the jump harness it would likely end up being yet another oddity, probably in the 'personal mobility' section. Which had rocket-powered roller skates and a backpack that changed into a base jumper hang glider of some kind in addition to the moped and an ultra-compact folding bicycle.
Taylor poked around some more in the more odd categories. There she found a series of 'laser-accurate' automatic pencil sharpeners, a snow-clearing device that Taylor assumed was a modified weapon based on the other things that tinker made, and a drink cooler that apparently couldn't be made to not include the occasional flamethrower-like effects into the air above it as that was what it used to remove heat. Shaking her head at some of that, she moved on to looking at accessories. She hadn't found much useful yet, but the catalog was quite large and she kept seeing 'accessories' that looked like they could be used elsewhere.
By the time Amy arrived Taylor had found one item that she thought might be worth getting for home. It was a generic secure-bluetooth compatible 'trigger' device intended to be wired into a control panel to allow for operation from nearby. It was listed as being compatible with a number of mounted weapons systems and came with a single compatible remote with a choice of button layouts. Most of the
functionality was far beyond what she wanted it for, which was to wire into the garage door at home. The remote could go in her father's car if he wanted. She just had to see if her father would agree to installing it.
Which would require talking to him, of course. Maybe she could use this idea to start an actual conversation?
Chapter 37 School had been predictably boring, but Taylor had made it through by looking forward to the afternoon. No patrolling, just a knifework class and an unidentified appointment in a conference room on her calendar. She was fairly confident in her ability to use a knife at this point, and had been keeping the one she bought before meeting Lisa and Brian strapped to her leg under her pants whenever she was wearing long pants in civilian attire. Despite the recommendations of their instructor, however, she was not wearing it to bed. Even if they had been told of several times having a knife on hand while sleeping had saved their instructor's life. She was thinking a boot knife with appropriate sheath would be nice for when she was in costume, but hadn't bothered to get one yet.
Missy seemed to be similarly excited as the time for the knifework class approached, and Dennis was confused as he looked at his two teammates. The two sitting there teasing each other about mistakes in previous sessions in whispers probably wasn't helping. Even if Taylor missing that she had grabbed a knife by the blade a couple of times due to her enhanced durability was funny in hindsight.
"Carlos and I both looked up every class we think they could possibly be taking," Dean said, patting Dennis's shoulder. "We can't find a thing that makes sense. Don't know how they are hiding whatever it is, though, unless it is restricted to girls. In which case I don't want to know."
Taylor blinked at that even as Dennis cringed, then pulled up the information on the various classes she and Missy had signed up for to get armory access. A quick check of each page's flags told her that they had been locked down to SL4 or better, meaning that she and Missy were the only Wards that could see them right now.
Maybe they should tell the others about the page to get a higher clearance level? On the other hand, they might not all be able to get up to SL4 right now either way.
Dean and Dennis headed off to patrol, as had Carlos and Brian a few minutes earlier. Chris was tinkering today, and Lisa was never really around during the week. Taylor wondered what non-combat Wards are supposed to do on days that the PRT runs the console.
Out of curiosity she sent Lisa a text message asking her, then headed out with Missy.
"Do you think we should share the security clearance increase request form with the others?" Taylor asked Missy when they were halfway to their class. "Since only those with SL4 can even see the classes needed for the armory and all."
"Well, you need SL4 to get into the armory," Missy said, absently violating spacetime to avoid clipping the corner as they turned it. "So that part makes sense. And Chris asked me outright what classes we were taking, so I told him. He is bummed that he hasn't been a Ward long enough to get that far, but also admitted he would probably try and take the stuff apart instead of using it as-is."
"Which would get his armory privileges revoked. What about Carlos or Dean?"
"I think Dean has a couple of months to go, but I might be wrong?
Carlos should be ready though. Why not Dennis?"
"What, bring him in on this one to get the reactions of the others? But I've been enjoying his quest to figure things out."
"But imagine him leaving a frozen containment foam grenade sitting somewhere."
"And how does that differ from setting the timer and leaving it sitting there? I don't see him walking back up to it to unfreeze it, given that he already figured out he couldn't manually cancel without touching the frozen items."
The two argued for a bit, not coming to any actual decisions before their class started.
Taylor and Missy had ended up back in the Wards common area earlier than expected, both quite happy that their instructor had deemed them both competent enough to pass the class. It would take a day or two for things to clear and a certificate would arrive in the mail. Which they were used to by now, they actually had stuck the previous certificates to the walls of their rooms with plenty of space for a few more. They were also informed that when things cleared they would be allowed to sign up for the knife throwing class,
should they want to.
"So, do you think we should go for knife throwing?" Missy asked as she sat on a stool, snacking on a granola bar. "Since we apparently qualify for it now and all."
"I don't know," Taylor replied, sipping on her drink as she compared a couple of boot knives in the PRT store. The one Missy had was purchased elsewhere and was the wrong size for Taylor's hand anyway. "While it could be useful it is also fairly difficult to ensure that injuries stay non-lethal. Unless you get good at hitting them with the handle, anyway, but then a rock would be just as good."
"Good point. We'll hopefully have better options soon if we want to go ranged and dangerous."
Taylor eventually decided to purchase both knives, figuring that if push came to shove she could keep one in each boot and pull the one that made more sense for the situation. She then made her way to the undescribed appointment on her calendar. It was marked as approved by Miss Militia and Director Piggot, so it was unlikely to be a mistake.
Bringing up the secure meeting room to be used for Taylor's mystery appointment on the map showed that it was unusually positioned. It was apparently intended to be accessed only from the lower levels of the PRT building, despite being in the upper area. To facilitate this the stairwell in that corner of the building had most of the access
points closed off unless you had SL7 or better clearance. The two exceptions were the below-ground door and the door that led to the hallway the conference room was in. This served to make it convenient from the Wards area, and from the secret entrances and secure garage, but not from the main door.
Once in that hallway there looked to be four rooms. Two restrooms,
a kitchenette, and the conference room. To access the rest of the floor you had to pass through a hidden SL7 locked door in an alcove next to the restrooms. Taylor wondered how those who needed the use the elevator got into the area if they didn't have the right clearance to use the hidden door. More interestingly, it looked like the 'secure' door was the stairwell door, not the conference room door? At least, the conference room didn't show as having a lock on the map.
As she made her way there it was also apparent to Taylor that there was a parahuman waiting for her, one that she hadn't met before.
She pondered that as she moved up the stairwell, using her jump harness to go up the middle instead of walking up the stairs themselves. Getting the angles right to boost from level to level was a challenge and she missed the last one, barely getting her hands up in time to stop herself from slamming head-first into the bottom of the next landing up.
She got up from her botched boost and walked up the last flight of stairs. Whether or not the parahuman in question was part of her appointment she would need to at least introduce herself to the snark. Otherwise she would likely end up being rude to the snark's human, even if it was just as they passed in the hallway.
Hello there.
[Query!]
Er, what? I don't think humans have any real color-based indicators of our thoughts?
[Data]
Well, yes, blushing is a thing. But it isn't constant and has multiple reasons? Besides, the color is pretty much always the same for any given person.
[Dismay]
Taylor was quite confused about why the snark was so concerned about color displays in humans. Still, that probably wasn't why she was here, so she knocked on the plain wooden door. She noted that the stairwell door had switched to 'locked' a moment before the door was opened. But, interestingly, only from the outside? Or at least she thought that was what that icon combination meant.
"Good afternoon Maul," the woman, and parahuman, who had opened the door said. "Come in."
"Good afternoon," Taylor said as she entered the room, finding that there were multiple comfortable seats of various kinds, including two couches. There was a small desk next to the door with a computer on it, with what looked like the building map and a security camera feed from the stairwell open on the screen. On the other side of the door was a very sturdy looking coat rack and some empty, but also sturdy-looking shelving.
"I apologize for the deception with your calendar and the lack of information in the entry," the woman said. "But I was informed that you have been playing with the lack of information your fellow Wards had. I thus figured I would see about getting the information drop on you. I am Doctor Jessica Yamada, psychologist and therapist. You can call me Jessica. I'm one of four therapists that rotate through the various New England area PRT offices working with the Wards and other underage parahumans."
"So this would be my first mandated therapy session?" Taylor replied.
"That would be correct. I imagine that none of the seats I have in here will be comfortable with things strapped to your back, but if you are more comfortable with them on that is ok as well."
"I'm curious, does your snark help much with the therapy side of things?" Taylor asked as she slipped her jacket off. The coat rack proved to be up to the task of holding it. "I mean, it seems unusually focused on colors?"
After a moment of silence, Taylor turned to look at Jessica. Who was standing there with her jaw dropped. She snapped out of a moment later. "What is with your family? Your uncle pegged me as a parahuman within minutes of meeting me, I still don't know how your mother identified me as one when I ran into her when helping run a conference, and now you know more than I have told either of them!"
"My mother probably had one of Lustrum's rings on when she met you," Taylor offered, debating on removing her visor. It wasn't like Jessica didn't know who she was anyway, so she pulled it off and dropped it on one of the shelves. "Not sure I can explain my uncle,
and part of my powers lets me identify parahumans."
"I was informed that you and your father were read in on his situation, though we can't speak of it at this time. And I'm sorry, that outburst was unprofessional of me. Would you prefer I call you Maul or Taylor?"
"Taylor is fine. So does your snark help you?"
"Not that I know of, all identifying colors to the limit of human perception has done for me is speed along the decline of several relationships. Your uncle tried to figure out what my power wanted me to do, but couldn't. It seems like there's a disconnect of some kind."
"Want me to ask it for you?"
Jessica stared at Taylor for a moment, then sighed. "This is supposed to be about you. Will it take long?"
"It shouldn't."
"Then let's sit down and you can ask it, then we will move on to you.
Ok?"
Taylor sat down on one of the couches, with Jessica taking a chair somewhat facing it. She decided to ease into things, because the snark had seemed confused.
So, what do you do for your human?
[Data]
Taylor blinked. That seemed... wrong. Very wrong. How in the world was that supposed to work?
But humans don't have anything like that?
[Dejection. Elaboration]
Oooh, that makes more sense. Still, hasn't your human still learned about other parahumans?
[Agreement]
So why not pay more attention to what she has done and is doing?
Perhaps next time you can take a different route?
[Contemplation]
"So," Taylor said, trying to decide how to put what she had learned into words. Some of the concepts she understood, but explaining them wasn't automatic. "Your snark over-specialized with the last group of hosts, I think? It figured out how to allow reading of minute changes in what I think was surface pigmentation that could be interpreted to determine how others thought and, eventually, how
they were using their own powers. It kinda assumed that it could do the same with humans when it saw blushing? Depending on when you triggered your career choice may have been influenced by it."
"That, huh," Jessica said, looking at the ceiling. "That makes sense,
in a weird way. It certainly explains the period of time in college where I was obsessed with figuring out why people blushed and if you could tell the difference in why from the blush itself." She took a moment to contemplate that, then sighed and looked back at Taylor.
"Well then, with that out of the way, we should move on to you. I don't suppose you want to talk about the castle I hear you built in the junkyard out of old Winslow desks?"
Taylor blushed at that, which brought a smirk to Jessica's face.
The Wards common area was empty of humans when Taylor made it back. Which she was kinda happy about, she was a little off-kilter due to her discussion with Jessica. Explaining about the castle had led to the throne which had led to talking about the trio. They stopped talking about what the trio did before the locker could come up. Instead they then focused a little on Sophia being Shadow Stalker and how Taylor felt about that, before ending the session with Emma's 'betrayal' and how Taylor felt about it.
All in all the session had lasted longer than it was supposed to, had dredged up things that Taylor had been avoiding thinking about since January, and was probably something that she had desperately needed.
She changed back into her civilian clothing and grabbed the last box of tinker-made chocolate from her gift basket. She was going to head home and focus on the homework she had, and if she ran out of that she would probably finish the last bits of the stuff she had been filling out. She hoped she qualified for whatever class she was working towards soon.
When she made it home she didn't even find the silence nearly as awkward as it had been the previous couple of days. Then again,
she wasn't in the mood to talk about much of anything as her emotional equilibrium settled. That didn't save the chocolate, it was too delicious to avoid its fate.
Come Wednesday the gossip of choice was the press conference that afternoon for a new Protectorate member. PHO was going nuts over this being the fourth new cape in the past few months for Brockton Bay. Well, 'at least fourth' because two of the last three Wards had been seen as surprise additions to existing press conferences. And rumors had circulated that new Wards elsewhere had started in Brockton Bay, but without proper introductions. Which was technically true twice over as Rachel and Alec still hadn't made the national news.
Unfortunately for Taylor there were multiple tests today. Which meant gossip to take minds off of the tests between classes. By lunchtime multiple people were coming to talk to people at the table she was sitting at, hoping someone would let something slip. A few wanted to talk to Taylor, more were aiming for Amy, and one memorable encounter with a student who foolishly tried to get useful information out of Dennis after Taylor and Amy revealed nothing.
Dennis lasted half a sentence before breaking down laughing at his own nonsense, and the student retreated quickly before they could be humiliated for their mistake. It didn't help, as the others at their table pounced immediately.
Betting was rampant amongst students regarding the to-be-
announced cape. Their basic type, their gender, and if they would be
one of the previously unheard of anti-heroes were the three main topics. If there was going to be more than one was another.
Interestingly, nobody would take Taylor up on any bets. Yes,
technically she knew most of the details they were betting on, but they didn't know that. They just assumed she did because of her family connections.
After school Taylor made her way to the PRT building, costumed up,
and went straight for the junkyard to blow off some steam. She found new additions to the room since her previous visit, a pile of refrigerators off to one side, a stone lion across the room from them.
And right in the middle was a pile of kitchen sinks. In addition to those it looked like someone had hung target circles on the walls.
Taylor gave things some thought, then dug a 10x10cm broken post of some kind out of one of the other piles. She then proceeded to see if she could use it like a bat to hit sinks she tossed into the air at the targets. An hour later she hadn't had much luck with hitting the targets, but the rest of it had been quite fun. But it was time for her last scheduled patrol for the week, so she headed back to the Wards area.
Today, by Taylor's request, her patrol partner was Brian. He showed up shortly after Taylor made it back to the Wards area.
Hello there! Would you like to try and feed Broadcast Administrator energy today?
[Agreement]
Excitement
Taylor felt something that she couldn't describe happening, almost like very loud white noise was coming from Brian's snark. But it wasn't white noise? She also got a sense of it adjusting, speeding up and refining in a way as Broadcast Administrator adjusted. The one thing she did know was that the initial rate was, to Broadcast Administrator anyway, incredibly and horrifically slow and inefficient.
Patrol had been incredibly dull today due to the press conference. It was held outside of the ferry terminal, given that a Protectorate cape was being introduced and not a Ward. The run over to and around the hospital was only made slightly less physically monotonous by
one time they needed to wait for a car to pass before they crossed a street.
One of the good things about the patrol was that it gave plenty of time for the two snarks to test some things and make adjustments to improve the energy transfer. Brian's had never had to work at this as Distributor apparently handled most of the work by pulling the energy from it, and her own was apparently cheating something in some way to store the extra energy and thus had never needed to receive energy in this way before. On the other hand, Taylor got the impression that they were sharing enough data to ensure that giving excess energy to some other snark should go more smoothly in the future, on both of their parts.
The patrol's discussion centered a little on 'Mycroft' and what the PRT was doing to get her actually doing cape things during the week. In particular, they were apparently revising the local console policy to give non-combat Wards weekday console slots so that they didn't end up being all but forced to take all the weekend console slots. Which they weren't allowed to do in the first place. Beyond that Lisa was apparently going over various bits of data about the state of the gangs in the city.
Brian admitted that he had found it curious that none of the gangs had 'stepped up' to try and take over Coil's limited territory until Lisa had mentioned some of her findings while helping him prepare for his sister to join him in his new apartment over the weekend.
Apparently Coil's moles had successfully taken over most of the 'leaked' information flow between the gangs and PRT. So the gangs were likely caught on the back foot, so to speak, suddenly not knowing what the other gangs or the PRT were doing. As such most of the post-Coil activity had likely been hunting those now-obvious moles out of their internal groups and ensuring they could operate without that information flow.
On that front, the PRT was far ahead of the game as they hadn't been trying to keep moles in the gangs and now their own information was flowing outward a lot less freely.
As the boring patrol came to an end and the energy transfer tapered off, having gotten a lot 'quieter' as the two snarks smoothed things out, Taylor realized that she was missing something, and she wasn't sure why she hadn't considered it before.
Where are you storing all of the extra energy, anyway?
Data
... you have an entire planet that you were supposed to share with snarks from the other Jabberwock, but the other snarks never showed up?
Agreement
Taylor had no idea what to do with that revelation. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what a Jabberwock was either. The fact that her snark had an entire planet to itself was bad enough. Though...
Which planet?
Data
That... sounded a lot like Earth. Obviously not Earth Bet. Or maybe she was misinterpreting something?
Out of curiosity, where are you and are you sharing with any other snarks?
[Data. Annoyance]
Nope, that sounded like Brian's snark was on a Venus somewhere and had needed to wait for one of the other snarks sharing the planet with it to clean the atmosphere up before it could start gathering sunlight properly.
A few minutes later Brian led the way into the Wards area, not surprised in the least to find Lisa there. Lisa, on the other hand,
looked like she wanted to hit something. Or someone? Brian had
apparently decided that saying nothing was the best solution in this case.
[Data]
Thanks, I think.
Ok, according to Inference Engine she kinda wanted to hit Taylor.
Good to know.
Where exactly are you, and do you share with any other snarks?
[Data. Exposition. Data]
Inference Engine had gotten to claim Antarctica on the Earth it landed on and liked the cold, and the other snarks on that Earth were jealous of it. Right. Lisa kinda wanted to hit Taylor. That was a distraction from thinking about incredibly disturbing revelations about snarks! "Hello Lisa. Why so violently-minded this fine day?"
"They figured out that I hacked my school records," Lisa replied,
glaring at Taylor. "Because you convinced me to join the Wards I have had to spend every day this week taking tests to prove that I deserve those hacked records. Fail even one and they threatened to send me to Arcadia as a freshman, even if it was one of the senior year tests that I failed."
"Meh, a little incentive never hurt anyone."
"Today I had to visit the hospital to have Amy fix my hand due to the cramps."
"You didn't just fill out the request form to take the tests digitally?"
Lisa stared at Taylor, then pulled out her phone. Taylor left her to it as she went and changed back into civilian attire. Brian followed her in that general direction, snickering.
[Query]
Promise not to tell Lisa?
[Agreement]
I don't think there is any such form. The state is on record as not wanting to go to the trouble of implementing tinkertech-derived computers in the education department until failure rates are more manageable.
Taylor finished changing, then went to grab an unhealthy snack from her vending machine stash. Only to find it empty. She stared at the empty drawer and pouted, having forgotten that she had already finished those off. Oh well, healthy snacks worked too. She passed Lisa, who was still searching, on her way into the kitchen area. Four granola bars and a bottle of juice were quickly gathered before she sat on one of the stools.
The last third of the juice was all that was left of Taylor's snack when Lisa finally sighed. "Ok, I give up. Where is the form I missed?"
You can tell her now.
[Amusement]
Lisa flinched, then blinked a couple of times as Taylor finished off the juice. "YOU JERK!" Lisa finally yelled, grabbing an unopened can of soda she had next to her and throwing it at Taylor. Who caught it,
decided she didn't have any interest in drinking it to spite Lisa, and put it down on the counter next to her.
"I think I am going to side with Taylor on this one," Brian said from where he had been watching, leaning against one of the couches. "If only because I found it fairly obvious what she was doing and amusing that the great detective that doesn't work in the field missed it. Especially when you apologized to me back when I was testing out of school to avoid truant officers due to the state not digitizing yet."
Lisa was now trying to decide who she wanted to glare at more, but eventually gave up and sighed. "Ok, I can see that. Don't like it, but I can see it." She then turned to Taylor. "You have had your fun. Given that people have gone looking, multiple times, for the classes you
and Missy are taking, I think I am going to try the obvious-but-
ignored solution to figuring it out. Taylor, what classes are you and
Missy taking?"
Taylor blinked, and after a minute Brian facepalmed. Taylor then snickered at the fact that Brian was facepalming, before collecting herself. "We are taking classes needed to get armory access. You can't find them or sign up for them unless you have SL4 or better."
Lisa stared at Taylor, flinching a couple of times, before sighing again. "Damn, you are telling the truth. They left me at SL3 due to a couple of things I know. Nothing like your bullshit SL9 for reasons I still can't fully figure out. I won't be able to get SL4 until after I reach Protectorate age due to the advancement rules."
"Or until you figure out a big enough secret, demonstrating a greater need. Technically I think that is why I have SL9."
Lisa groaned as Taylor made her way out, giggling. Probably because Lisa was still trying to figure that one out. Huh, come to think of it, why was Lisa working on that still?
What does Lisa know about my uncle?
[Data]
Taylor blinked as she thought about that. Lisa thought that her uncle was a mole in the Nine. Because that is what Inference Engine thought, not having enough information to infer otherwise. Well, that was still closer than most others got to the truth.
Taylor decided she needed a distraction from both thinking about snarks being disturbing and her snark reworking a bunch of plans
with the knowledge obtained from figuring out the energy transfer.
Apparently the communication 'subsystem' had new bits to play with that her snark had never paid attention to before? As such she had listened to the radio summary of the press conference as she made her way home, focusing on it to drown out the bleed-through.
Apparently Vivian had gotten anti-hero branding and had taken the name 'Countdown'. Her costume was a practical set of military-like fatigues in purple with a utility belt and criss-crossing bandoliers full of grenades. She had a thick pair of goggles to cover her eyes and a gas mask or respirator covering her lower face, apparently with a voice changer if the audio clips were anything to go by. She admitted to being a tinker, but not what her specialty was.
Vivian also appeared to have had a skillet attached to where the bandoliers crossed on her back. Taylor wondered if that was in homage to her or intended as mocking. After giving it some thought she decided it was probably a mocking homage. She would revise that opinion later if more information came to light.
Of course, not admitting her tinker specialty wasn't hiding too much,
given that her entrance had involved multiple explosions. One of the more newsworthy ones had created a temporary iceberg in the bay.
Temporary not because it would eventually melt, but because Vivian then set it on fire with another bomb, before turning the burning iceberg into a burning snowfall with a third. She switched over to music while stopped waiting for the light at an intersection instead of listening to the 'breaking news' on a warehouse fire that came on after the rundown of Vivian's introduction.
Arriving home Taylor found that her father wasn't around. She thought that was slightly odd, but given that the outside lights were on he may have just run to the store or something. Once she had made it inside she found a note sitting on the kitchen table stating that he had been called back to work when someone working overnight had set fire to one of the warehouses. The prepped food for dinner was in the fridge and the temperature and time for cooking it was on the note. That only took a moment to get started.
When she turned on the news to see if they were showing clips of Vivian's introduction she instead found that the warehouse fire was prominently featured. She even caught sight of her father in a couple of the background shots, helping direct others to move equipment out of the way. She left that on and pulled her tablet out instead to dig up videos online, somewhat happy when she saw that the 'burning snowfall' had been entirely over the water. There was no way that the explosions themselves had directly caused the warehouse fire.
Taylor ended up eating dinner alone, her father sending her a text message to let her know he was ok but that he would be staying late to help with securing the site. Taylor replied with a message that she had put the 'leftovers' into the fridge for him. She then went and used the only printer in the house, which was attached to her father's new computer but had a wireless option that let her tablet talk to it too, to print out the information sheet on the secure Bluetooth control relay box. She left that on the table with a note saying she might want to get one to hook up to the garage door, and that her father could keep the remote in his car.
With any luck that would start an actual in-person conversation in the near future.
Last edited: Jul 7, 2018
Chapter 38 Thursday morning Taylor let her father sleep in, which was what she normally did when he was called in for a late night. She also had to leave a little earlier to take the bus to school, as she had no way of carrying a plant home on her moped.
She was the only one at the bus stop this morning, so it was only boarding the bus that exposed her to other people and the gossip surrounding Countdown. The main topics were her specialty and how she would work with the rest of the Protectorate. Taylor wasn't holding out much hope on the latter, given that she wasn't sure Vivian's ego could work with others well, but time would tell.
At school she found that she was the last attending parahuman to arrive. She didn't know who a couple of the parahumans were,
because they weren't Wards or New Wave, but she shared no classes with them and hadn't run into them elsewhere yet, so she was doing her best to ignore their existences. At least after she had said hello to their snarks, briefly, in case she ran into them. Actually,
for all she knew one of the others was a teacher and not a student.
They didn't usually move around during classes, so they probably weren't part of the janitorial staff or something like that, but until she saw them in person or poked at their snarks more she didn't really know.
Amy and Vicky were by the door she was approaching. Amy was laughing, and Vicky looked annoyed. Once she was close enough she called out to the two. "Hello Amy, Vicky."
"Hi," Vicky said, sounding as annoyed as she looked. "Before you ask, the door's locked for some reason and I bent the handle when I tried to pull it open."
Taylor looked at the handle and found that it was, indeed, bent outwards. It didn't look like the pivot point had been damaged, just
the bit sticking off of the pivot point to grab onto. Taylor tried spinning the handle despite the new shape and found that it was indeed locked, and a quick pull showed that the crash bar inside wasn't locked in the depressed position. She then turned to the other of the two doors and pulled on it, finding it opened just fine due to its crash bar being locked down. "Looks like you need to learn to be more careful."
Amy had been calming down, but had resumed laughing at the look on Vicky's face when the other door opened without issue.
"I can't help that my power makes it hard to tell when I am putting pressure on things," Vicky finally admitted, with a bit of a whine. "I try,
but sometimes I don't get any useful feedback until it is far too late."
Taylor looked at Vicky, who seemed sincere. That sounded really annoying and potentially problematic, actually. She bounced ideas around in her head before deciding to make yet another attempt with Vicky's snark, even if it was likely going to result in failure, if only so she could tell herself that she tried.
They had a mutual dislike so asking nicely was probably out. Bribing it hadn't worked in the past, and this could 'help' Taylor not be injured by Vicky so that was probably out. Even though this was probably unintended side effect territory, perhaps she could deliberately misinterpret things as the snark trying to make Vicky's life horrible?
As a bonus this plan meant she could probably be rude to it while technically making a valid attempt, which had no impact on her decision making process. Not one bit. Really.
Agreement
See, even her snark agreed that the plan allowing being rude to Vicky's snark had nothing at all to do with the decision!
Why are you so mean to Vicky?
[Negation]
Yes you are, you jerk. What happens when she accidently damages something or someone important because she doesn't know how much force she is applying? Something or someone that can't just be fixed, like Amy?
Huh, was it actually thinking about it? Wasn't it supposed to deny deny deny because Taylor was the one bringing it up? She followed Amy into the building while musing about that, Vicky moving off towards the office to report on the damage to the door handle.
[Reluctant Agreement. Contemplation]
Crap, that might have worked. That meant she might have to follow through and work with the annoying snark. But she wasn't going to hold her breath, but if it decided to talk more about this then she would try and be civil enough. If only because Vicky might actually hurt someone like Amy by accident otherwise.
"Can you believe that they have a standard form for her to fill out now," Amy finally said, shaking her head. "And they make her write it out, they don't even let her use one with her name filled in ahead of time."
"She damage things often?" Taylor asked as they stopped at Amy's locker.
"She is on her tenth locker door this year, and I think that is the third outside door handle. Only one desk that I know of, and I think she has managed to not do in any sporting equipment this year. None of the classroom doors are generally kept locked, so those haven't been an issue. And of course you already saw some of the results of her being less than careful at home. Come to think of it, I don't think she's accidentally crushed any hands since last July. That might be a record."
Taylor shook her head at that. No matter how annoying it was, with any luck she could accomplish something with Vicky's snark.
By the end of the school day Vicky's snark had poked Taylor twice more, apparently wanting ideas for how 'force' was measured. Or felt by humans. It was apparently trying to come up with a solution, but honestly didn't seem to have any problem solving skills, nor did it understand enough of how humans worked. On top of that, Taylor was the only communication channel it had available. Taylor probably would have given up by now if she didn't feel sorry for Vicky and concerned for everyone Vicky ever interacted with outside of a fight. Helping Vicky's snark was a necessary evil in that regard.
That didn't stop her from dropping it into a shared channel with Shaper for half an hour after the second question, because she wasn't even going to begin trying to explain how humans worked. If only because she barely understood the basics herself in many ways. Bleed-through meant she now knew more, but at least she had been able to mostly leave that discussion in the background.
Taylor met Amy at her locker, then headed out with her to the bus stop so they could make their way to the Dallon household. When they reached the bus stop, however, they found Vicky already there,
waiting.
"Hey Taylor," Vicky said, sitting on the bench in the standard 'shelter'
structure.
"Hi Vicky," Taylor replied. "Why are you waiting for the bus?"
"I'm not currently supposed to be flying when in 'civilian' mode, but Dean's car had a flat before school so I can't get a ride with him. His bus just left."
The three ended up sitting on the bench for the ten minutes it took for the bus to arrive. Amy and Vicky were both poking at their phones, catching up on things that had collected during the day.
Taylor honestly didn't have a whole lot of digital activity, so instead she was discussing things with Vicky's snark.
Ok, so you still have no idea how to measure the amount of force for Vicky. Sorry, but I honestly don't know enough about how you do your thing to give you any ideas.
[Query]
Well, yes, if I had a better idea of what you are doing I might be able to figure something out. Why?
[Data. Infodump. Data. Exposition. Data. Elaboration. Data]
Amy looked over at Taylor as the latter grabbed her head in pain. A quick poke had Amy gasping. "How in the...?"
"I think I went too far in negotiations," Taylor mumbled. "Gimme a minute to recover."
Data
Nice to know that you can't figure out how to use any of that to duplicate it yourself, but not having the right component pieces and not having been told how to build them would do that. Any other insights?
Negation
A minute of recovery turned into fifteen, Taylor's impromptu thinker-
style headache noticeably settling while they were getting on the bus
but not to the point of her being functional yet. Vicky and Amy clearly wanted to know more, but they were in public and the issue was clearly powers-related, so they had to wait until they wouldn't compromise Taylor's identity. A few minutes into the bus ride Taylor's headache had subsided enough for her to actually consider the problem, and she probably needed to while the information was still fresh anyway.
So, let me get this straight. You have two primary things you do relating to force. One is the defensive shield, which reacts to outside
forces or energy by freezing in place and directly countering whatever it is that triggered it. Your, 'capacitors' I guess, have to recover from the sudden exertion and that causes a flicker in the protection proportional to how much force was negated?
[Agreement]
Then there is the enhancement, which is where the problems come into play. There you are functioning more like a telekinetic booster through the defensive shield, in the process multiplying the forces that Vicky exerts. The moving through 3D space at will is a side effect of the application of things that helps her safely lift objects from otherwise inappropriate leverage points. All of those enhancement pieces run off a single set of 'capacitors' like the defensive shield, but because it is a set of controlled drains instead of an automatic burst they don't need to be 'full' to function, thus in order for that to stop working she would need to try something that empties them entirely.
[Agreement]
And the way that works at a low level means that when she is interacting with things you don't know how much force you are applying until it is already being applied. Which is where the problem lies, because that control loop runs too quickly even for you to keep up with what you believe would be the force numbers?
[Agreement]
And then, on top of that, if the force she is applying is large and fast enough, the 'equal and opposite reaction' dance in physics triggers the defensive shield, causing it to fire and flicker. Which until it recovers also cancels out most of the strength boosts.
[Agreement]
Taylor was having trouble seeing how to make all of that work such that Vicky had better control over what she was doing with the
enhanced strength portion, without leaving her a sitting duck due to a lack of forcefield. Although, the aura hadn't been mentioned in any of that?
How do you handle the aura?
[Data]
Another set of capacitors, normally continuously draining and filling,
with the ability to 'spike' their output to flare the aura. That is handled by a different type of output unit, unlike the shield and enhancements which are different applications of the same basic idea. But her aura is mostly off now?
[Agreement. Data]
Oh, you are just leaving those capacitors charged. Ok.
Taylor continued to ponder things, mildly amused on some level that a snark that had hated her guts had turned around and was depending on her. For now, anyway. On a whim she pulled a phone out and started searching for interesting uses of capacitors online,
thinking that the rough analogy might be good enough for things to translate if something suitable came up. Even if she knew that she was over-simplifying things a lot.
Amy had dragged Taylor off of the bus when they got to the stop nearest the Dallon household, as Taylor had gotten a little too into looking at capacitor projects. Well, once she made it through a dozen pages of search results that didn't even properly mention capacitors, anyway. She thought most of those had 'capacity' in them, but hadn't allowed that train of thought to sidetrack her.
She had finally ended up on some kid's poorly thrown together website, where he was describing how he had met a challenge. He had a relatively low power energy source and needed to use it to fire a flash bulb five times in five seconds, which the issuer of the
challenge thought was going to be impossible. Said bulb used more power than the source could reliably provide in a single second, so he had rigged up five capacitors to be charged by the source. He then connected them individually to the flash bulb by spinning a rotary connector he had rigged up. There were timing issues with the rotary connector, he apparently had something about the voltage/amperage balance off for charging the capacitors at first, and he needed fifteen to twenty minutes charge time on the finished product for five seconds of use, but the whole thing had worked. He even had a video of it posted.
Even better, it had given her an idea.
Are your capacitors interchangeable?
[Agreement. Confusion]
I'm getting there. Could you swap out the 'defensive shield'
capacitors for the 'generate aura' capacitors?
[Agreement. Confusion]
Can you make it so that when Vicky isn't using her aura she gets two hits to her shield by switching the shield and aura capacitors after the first hit?
[Uncertainty. Excitement]
And now the point I was getting at, can you let her turn off her enhancements to get a third hit to her shield, while allowing her to otherwise interact with the world as a normal human?
Hello?
Taylor flinched and looked around as Amy poked her. Fairly hard,
and with what felt like a momentary firing of some of her pain receptors. "Oh, we're here. Sorry, I got distracted."
"We noticed," Vicky said, grinning. "I was tempted to poke you, but given how much my power dislikes you I didn't think I should risk it.
You were really into whatever it was you were reading there?"
"I think I might have just resolved the dislike your snark has for me,"
Taylor admitted, holding her phone up as it played the kid's video.
"Maybe. We'll see. It might be a temporary truce for your benefit instead."
"Well come on out back," Amy said, bouncing a little. She apparently wanted to show off her work and didn't care that much about Taylor's relation with Vicky's snark. Or maybe she didn't care as much as she wanted to show off her work?
[Query]
Oh, you are still there. I... don't actually know how to make mental interfaces. I just know that Broadcast Administrator made a mental switch for me?
Data
[Query]
Elaboration
Taylor blinked, she had caught maybe three percent of that. Possibly a lot less. But if that wasn't something snarks just knew, that raised a different question. She slipped into a different channel with her snark.
Does Shaper know that?
Uncertainty. Query
[Confusion]
Data
[Intrigue. Query]
Uncertainty
What to use it for? Huh. Could you use that to let Amy turn the whole seeing the biology of things she touches off?
[Intrigue]
That couple of conversations lasted just long enough to make it to the greenhouse out back, and Taylor thus turned most of her attention back to her surroundings. Amy was just opening the greenhouse door, and Vicky stood back to watch. Taylor suspected that Amy had been just as excited when showing pretty much anyone else, and she had said something about having gotten PRT approval to let the roses out of her greenhouse, right?
Taylor looked at the collection of miniature rose bushes sitting on the
table in the middle of the greenhouse. Each one had rainbow-
colored petals on the flowers, like little gradient-style color wheels.
She darted over to examine the closest one. "Oh wow, you even got some proper violet in there, didn't you?"
"Yep," Amy replied, coming up next to Taylor. "I had to use a tinkertech camera to tell the difference so that I was sure I was getting it correct. The real breakthrough was when I figured out how to make the plants arrange the pigment-producing cells in a ring by
rigging them to chain in order. I don't mind that they sometimes self-
arrange in reverse as it provides a nice contrast." Taylor noted a
couple of flowers on the bush she was examining were colored in the opposite direction and silently agreed that the effect was nice. "Of course, one issue is that they aren't pet friendly, but some of the pigments were never going to be pet friendly in the first place."
"She even got an offer to sell them in the PRT store," Vicky threw in.
"Somehow approved by Directors Piggot and Costa-Brown."
"They only agreed to a trial run of ten," Amy retorted. "They'll pick those up sometime over the weekend, take pictures, and get an entry up. They did ask me if I could make seeds that grew into these as those would be easier to ship and would appeal to a different market. I am still working on that part, as I cheated in a couple of places with these ones since they didn't need to create or grow from seeds. Keeping them not making seeds is easy, but some of the work I did to make them as hardy as they are also contributed to intentionally making cuttings not take root or graft well and I am not sure if I can get that behavior out of a seed-grown version."
"Do you know how much they are going to cost?" Taylor asked,
curious.
"Five hundred to a thousand dollars a pop," Vicky answered,
grinning. "Depending on demand, being highly exclusive and limited quantity due to her healing, schoolwork, and having a life eating up her time. Until Ames turns eighteen half of that would go straight into her trust fund, a quarter into the New Wave account, and the last quarter into her personal bank account."
"Carol and Sarah insisted that they come with a pamphlet describing New Wave's goal so long as I am still a minor," Amy added,
shrugging. "I plan on bringing one to the hospital tomorrow for the lobby too. At any rate, pick one out to take home, then I think I want to grab a snack. And to know what was distracting you on the bus, or perhaps how you got a thinker headache without being a thinker before then?"
"They are all somewhat related," Taylor said, taking one of the bushes that she thought was shaped correctly for her bedroom. "It kinda started with Vicky's door handle incident this morning?"
They went into the house and grabbed some cookies before Taylor explained how she had been talking with Vicky's snark off and on all day about Vicky needing to know how much force she was exerting.
She mentioned that they had found that her snark didn't even know how much force was being exerted until it was too late, which led to
the headache from information overload when Vicky's snark revealed a bit too much all at once out of a desire to find a solution. But they had come up with an alternate idea, that Taylor didn't want to reveal unless Vicky's snark pulled it off.
"So you were distracted by your idea?" Amy said once Taylor was done explaining. "But how does a flash bulb going off a few times have anything... huh."
"Amy?" Vicky said, poking Amy in the shoulder. "Hello?"
"Taylor," Amy finally said. "Where exactly in your tale did you skip whatever it was you did to give me a mental switch?"
"Oh, that," Taylor said, grinning. "Technically that happened just before we entered the greenhouse, and you didn't ask about that, as it was after we arrived here. Does the switch work?"
Amy glared at Taylor, then moved around to Taylor's seat before grabbing her hand. She then stared at where their hands were touching. "So, I can still feel my biology, but when the switch is off touching things no longer gives me information? I think it disables all of my striker abilities, actually. How? And Why?"
"Vicky's snark asked about mental interface stuff, which I knew my snark had done, and it dawned on me that if hers didn't know then yours might not. So I asked, and it turned out that mine was the only one of the three that knew how originally, and when it told your snark in particular the question of what to use it for came up. I suggested an off switch for your casual reading of the biology of everything living you touch, and it apparently felt that would work?"
Amy stared at Taylor. "So, now I can choose to not see the biology of every human I touch, and thus not be tempted to fix them on contact?"
"Yep."
"And I can choose to not be informed of every microbe on any surface I make skin contact with throughout the day?"
"Er, yes?"
"And I can pet cats and dogs, or touch plants, or have insects land on me and all of that without being informed of every little nuance of their biology?"
"That sounds right?"
Amy stared for a moment longer, then grabbed Taylor in a hug.
Taylor thought Amy was muttering "thank you", but wasn't actually sure. It started getting awkward after a couple of minutes, but Taylor wasn't sure what to do.
"Yea, enough of that. Congrats Amy. So, Taylor, when do I get my power upgrades?" Vicky asked teasingly, which seemed to prompt Amy to let go of Taylor. "Given that I was supposedly your focus and all?"
"When your snark finishes figuring things out? I suspect it has to do a lot more for what we talked about. Give it a day or two, if nothing happens then have me poke it some more?"
"Ok, I can live with that."
Taylor arrived home with her new rosebush, safe in a plant carrier Amy had prepared with some nutrient sticks and a little glass watering bulb thing. Apparently it could help keep the unusually hardy bush watered without daily watering? She wasn't sure how it worked, just that Amy said it did.
Approaching the house on foot from the bus stop allowed Taylor plenty of warning that her father was home, based on the fact his car was in the driveway. On one hand that meant he wasn't running exceptionally late at work today, which was a good thing. On the
other hand that meant either awkward silence or potentially awkward discussions, she wasn't sure which would be worse today.
It didn't help that she felt guilty for having thought that it would be nice if her father triggered at some point, because then she could possibly find out what he was thinking from his snark. Trigger events were not fun and she didn't want her father to ever have one, but the thought still came to her.
As she entered the house she could hear her father was on the phone, she thought it sounded like he was talking with Kurt, so she made her way upstairs. She carefully pulled the little rosebush out of the carrier and set it down where she wanted it, then went and filled the watering bulb thing with water in the bathroom. Returning with it she made a hole and inserted it into the pot like Amy had said to, but didn't add any nutrient sticks yet. Amy had said she would want to use one every couple of weeks. Once that was all set she considered her options.
Using a need to do homework as an excuse to avoid awkward silence and/or conversations was something Taylor had considered,
but unfortunately the Dallon sisters had conspired to get her to do her fairly limited 'due anytime soon' homework with them, removing that excuse. Not that they likely actually knew that they had removed the excuse, because that would have required admitting the existence of awkwardness in the Hebert household. She could conceivably work on the latest round of parahuman psychologist/therapist information and forms as an excuse, but not only was that not really something she had to do, she was also starting to wonder if that was some kind of intentional time sink. She would probably keep working on them anyway, but it was getting a bit ridiculous. When were they going to let her take actual classes?
The sheer number of things she was reporting as mistakes and misconceptions, some from her own experiences and others from her snark practically laughing at the information presented, were enough to see it through, if only in case they were serious about them. She was really starting to hope some of the mistakes were
intentional jokes. Most of the misconceptions were more understandable and seemed to be missing key information, like shortly after parahumans starting appearing and they thought powers drove people toward conflict because all of the 'visible'
parahumans fought. They knew better now that for the most part snarks wanted to be used, and a lot of the more flashy were hard to find a use for other than fighting.
Taylor shook her head and made her way downstairs. Musing on that kind of thing wasn't going to help her either, after all. It sounded like her father was off the phone, but he wasn't in the living room. She checked and found he was in the kitchen, looking over takeout menus. She suspected that the oven door not currently being attached to the oven had something to do with that.
"Any preference for takeout?" Danny asked, looking up at Taylor. "I found out the oven door's hinge wasn't rated for people falling on the door when I was trying to clean the oven earlier. Though the rust may have had something to do with that."
Taylor looked at the oven door and found that the hinges were broken off, and apparently had rusted a bit. And looked like they were cobbled together from spare parts of something else, actually.
What had Kurt and her father used a couple years ago when the door wouldn't stay shut?
The two spent ten minutes discussing options before deciding on Italian, which Danny then ordered. They would, in theory, have dinner show up in the next hour. Which left them either talking about the oven door, which Danny obviously didn't want to do, or awkwardness they had been avoiding all week. Taylor had no idea how to start anything.
"So, Taylor," Danny finally said, grabbing a couple of sheets of paper he had put off to the side. "Given that you want to buy something for the house with your store credit I decided to look into how much you had and what you were doing with it."
Well, that wasn't quite the awkward discussion Taylor had been expecting. Still, he could do that? Oh, wait, of course he could,
because parents or guardians could get full details of everything their kids were accumulating for funds, though 'full details' could be rather sparse for classified stuff, and what they were spending those funds on, which was almost never classified. Damnit.
"Granted, I had to contact Jacob to figure out how to get the information easily," Danny continued, either unaware of or not caring about Taylor's mild freakout. "But you appear to have been a bit lax in informing me of your various payouts?"
Taylor blinked at that. "I thought when that came up with Jacob you said you didn't actually care, as it was my money to do what I wanted with?"
"Well, that was before I found out your average monthly income has significantly exceeded my own, even if most of it has gone into your trust fund. And won't drop below mine for several months if you stopped getting bonus payments right now."
Taylor blushed, as she hadn't been thinking about things like that.
Then again, she did have the tinker fugue payout, which thinking about it might have been more than her father made in a couple of months all on its own. And she had stopped paying attention to the emails about payouts for parahuman information bounties, for that matter, only noting that Miss Militia had started directing most of it into her trust fund.
"And you don't appear to be using the money you can access,"
Danny added. "I think there is a single bit of shopping that you did on your own initiative shown here, and that was just after your largest payout. You spend ten times that amount when someone pushes you to update your wardrobe, which I know you dislike, so why aren't you spending money on things you enjoy?"
"Ummm," Taylor said, thinking about it. "I think the problem partially stems from getting most of my recent entertainment from, well,
trolling people."
"What about reading books?"
"The Library is cheaper and requires less storage, when I am not reading digitized versions of older books for free?"
Danny stared at Taylor, who suspected that this conversation had not gone anywhere near where he had intended originally. "If you insist on buying things for the house, can I at least stipulate that you also find something to spend money and/or credit on for your own entertainment? Even if it is props for your trolling or something, or maybe a trip to somewhere else to troll new people?"
Taylor blinked, buying things specifically for their troll value, instead of 'useful, and can be used to troll'? That might work. Trips elsewhere to troll people she would have to look into, as she had no clue where she would go and she still had school to worry about. "I guess I can try that. There's a joke shop on the boardwalk, right?"
Danny grinned a little, likely imagining what she could do with a pile of things from the joke shop. "Yes there is. I'm now also thinking that you could look over the PRT store for more things like your little trigger box idea, but more prank oriented? After you order one of the boxes, by the way, because having a remote opener for the garage sounds wonderful either way."
The resulting discussion slash search was interrupted by dinner arriving, though they had found several items that weren't all that useful alone, but could be paired together for amusement value.
Combining a low powered air cannon with a Bluetooth controller and a training grenade that exploded with paint instead of a normal explosion, for example. Add a battery pack to power it all and Taylor would merely need to be in range to set it off, and should be able to do so without drawing any direct attention to herself whatsoever.
Assuming she could avoid laughing too much.
Dinner itself was eaten largely in silence, in part because both participants felt it was rude to talk with your mouth full and both were hungry. Cleanup afterwards was done in silence, in part because Danny bumped the oven door and it fell over, drawing attention to his earlier accident. Taylor's snickering hadn't helped on that front.
Finally the silence had gone on too long, and Danny broke it.
"So, Taylor," Danny said, gesturing at the oven. "I don't suppose the PRT sells better ovens?"
"Not that I know of," Taylor replied. "But I can look?"
"Thanks." Danny fidgeted for a moment, then threw his hands up.
"This is ridiculous. I'm sorry for yelling at you for what turned out to be mostly unreasonable reasons."
Taylor blinked. Well, that was one unexpected way around the awkward, she guessed. "Er, they weren't entirely unreasonable. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was on my way out of town."
"No, no, that one you don't get to apologize for. I have left you in the dark about not coming home from work way too many times for that.
Lacey reminded me of that earlier when I called Kurt about possible new hinges for the oven door. In particular, she mentioned the week that you had to call them because I hadn't been home, you had no money, we were out of groceries, and I had neglected to ensure you had my new office number at work after we changed the phone system."
"Wasn't that the week that ended up being informally known as Murphy's Rube Goldberg week?"
"Yes, that one. Hard to believe the entire week started with a noodle delivery gone wrong." Danny shook his head. "The point is, I was distracted, as I imagine you were when you left. As such I can't really call you out on forgetting to tell me about these things without being a hypocrite."
"I'm sorry anyway."
"Well, that aside, we now have one more problem to deal with."
Taylor looked at her father, wondering what he was talking about. "I don't recall any other problems?"
"Well, you see, Kurt and Lacey aren't going to believe that we already talked. So they are still going to drag us somewhere, and they didn't tell me where, Saturday night."
"Crap. I think the last time they did something like that mom had to bail the three of you out of prison."
"Not that it was our fault, granted. We just happened to visit the theater at the wrong time and got caught up with the pile of Merchant trash. Being heavily drunk didn't help our position at the time."
"So, should I put the PRT on alert, just in case?"
Danny thought about that, and sighed. "Probably. Because otherwise I don't know who we'd call for help."
Last edited: May 9, 2018
Chapter 39 Friday afternoon saw Taylor swinging by the PRT building to get into costume before heading over to the hospital. Over the past few days Amy had explained that when out of town weekends approached there was generally a lull in traffic, then a mad rush to get every little thing treated before it would be 'impossible' to get in over the weekend. Enough people knew what was going on to panic, but they didn't think things through enough to realize that emergency services would still be available either way.
People with actual emergency needs trumped the visiting patients,
and occasionally enough actual emergencies occurring had pulled Amy away from those who were stable to deal with those who weren't, regardless of how far the 'stable' person had traveled. The unofficial truce apparently started after the second time that happened due to gang violence, partially in response to demands that something be done about the gangs as a side effect.
Of course, the fact that emergencies trumped non-emergencies was a form of logic that wasn't going to convince the masses of anything either way. Mainly because by that point the masses were running on emotions, not logic.
Taylor was a little confused as she approached the hospital. Amy was there ahead of her, which was expected, but there were three other snarks in the building. Carol was understandable, if unexpected. One of the other two attended Arcadia, but she had never properly met them, and the last she didn't recognize at all.
Then again she didn't actually know how, say, Parian would handle getting injuries. Taylor thought about it for a minute, but decided that unless something forced the issue she should probably do her best to ignore both of them.
Amy was on the ground floor, near where she had said they should meet. Carol was with her, and now that Taylor thought about it was
likely waiting for Taylor to 'relieve' her so that she could get to the other tasks she had today. And outside of the hospital there was an actual line of people, most of whom Taylor understood would never get near parahuman healing. They would be processed, their perfectly normal and/or nonexistent medical issues given normal treatments, and then sent on their way. Taylor was there as an additional deterrent for the occasional nut that decided that they had to see Panacea, now, everything else be damned.
They had even checked, and while technically within the rules, Taylor was 'discouraged' from giving those people actual reasons to receive healing. Like multiple broken bones caused by blunt impacts. Even if Amy had hinted that some of the "regulars" could use a legitimate reason to need healing, if only to give them a taste of what the kinds of injuries that should actually qualify felt like.
Needless to say, Taylor had shied away from Amy a bit at that, as the look on her face as she 'hinted' seemed to promise unpleasant things.
"Hello Maul," Carol called out as Taylor approached. "We've already had one person try and force their way past the nurses."
"They ran into the one janitor that has a mild case of PTSD and used to teach martial arts," Amy added, obviously working to suppress a grin. "It didn't end well for them."
"William didn't even have the decency to break bones, so the poor fellow was sent off with his bruises."
Taylor and Amy looked at Carol oddly, because she had sounded quite disappointed there. Which seemed very wrong with what she had been saying. After a moment Carol noticed their looks and raised an eyebrow. Well, she probably noticed Amy's look more than Taylor's, with the visor and all.
"You seem disappointed that they went home with a bunch of bruises," Amy finally said. "Which seems very out of character."
"I dislike idiots as much as the next cape," Carol retorted. "Or as much as any of the nurses, for that matter. We just can't get away with beating the crap out of them in situations like this."
"So, yea," Taylor finally said. "Hello, by the way. I think we got sidetracked back at the greeting phase. Any last-minute things I need to know?"
"You have ranged options, so aim to intercept before they reach Amy. Beyond that, generally expect that everyone in the hospital today should be looked over, the exceptions will have a black bar attached to the room number next to the door. There are always three or four people refusing parahuman healing for one reason or another."
Amy took a clipboard from a nurse as Carol left, then led Taylor to the elevators. Apparently they were starting at the top floor and working their way down today?
Two floors worth of patients were quickly dealt with, except for three 'black bar' rooms. One of which had the unknown Arcadia parahuman inside, which might be one reason they didn't want parahuman healing. Fear of being exposed as a cape themselves,
whatever their power might be, could be a very powerful motivator.
They were midway through the third floor of patients when things started going sideways. Specifically, things changed right as they reached the room the fully unknown parahuman was in.
[Affirmation]
Of course he is someone else's problem. I'm not the healer.
Well, that was somewhat convenient. She didn't have to initiate things to introduce herself.
[Confusion. Affirmation]
Excitement. Brain-Effect Countermeasures Activated: Input channel tied to output channel
Taylor shook her head, then looked at the room's door. Apparently she got to test things ahead of schedule. She hadn't wanted a field test, but such is life. Checking the room number she found no black bar, so they would need to head in. Only Amy was walking past the room? Taylor grabbed Amy's shoulder to stop her, resulting in Amy giving Taylor a look.
"Why are you skipping this room?" Taylor asked, pointing at the closed door. "No black bar?"
Amy looked at the door, then down at the clipboard she was carrying with the basic patient information for each room. She then shook her head and went to move on to the next room, before stopping and glaring at the closed door. "That is quite annoying. Come on, I think I want you with me for this one, just in case, instead of waiting to see if they are ok with your presence first." Most of the patients had eagerly accepted Taylor's presence, latching onto their ability to somewhat privately meet with two different parahumans, but Amy could choose to require Taylor's presence. An active parahuman effect was obviously a good reason to do so.
The two entered the room to find a single occupant, who had turned to look at them as they entered. Taylor didn't know what was supposedly wrong with the young man on the bed, but he didn't look all that injured. Then again, there were a lot of things that Amy could help with that wouldn't be visible at all, so not looking injured meant very little.
"My apologies," Amy said, not yet approaching the bed. "But Maul here is currently acting as my bodyguard. If you would prefer to not receive treatment because of her presence I can mark you down as having declined parahuman healing for the day."
The young man looked at Taylor, then blinked and looked back at Amy. He then froze and looked over at Taylor again. A moment later
he shook his head and looked at Amy, opening his mouth to speak.
He then stopped, as though he had forgotten what he was about to talk about. He then turned to stare at Taylor once more. "I'm fine with your bodyguard being here," he finally said, but decided to ignore Taylor a moment later.
While this was going on Taylor noticed that she had the beginnings of a headache, which struck her as odd. It wasn't major, but it was noticeable and was slowly getting worse. She did her best to ignore it for now, perhaps she would have Amy check it when they were done in here.
Amy made her way over to the young man's bed, reading his chart in the process. "It says here you were pulled out of the bay a couple of hours ago after you walked off of a boat into the water?"
Taylor blinked at that. "Why would you walk off of the boat into the water in March?"
The young man jerked slightly, as if he were shocked that Taylor was there. He then blinked a couple of times. "It seemed like a good idea at the time?"
Amy shook her head. "Do I have permission to heal you?"
"Yeah, go ahead."
Amy reached out and touched the young man's arm. Taylor had been avoiding listening to Shaper, because she knew she shouldn't be prying into other people's medical information. Still, she could imagine that Amy now knew that the young man had triggered at some point.
"Well," Amy finally said, shaking her head. "You appear to have triggered when you pulled your stunt earlier, and I am assuming you are a brute due to having no signs of hypothermia. Or really anything else for that matter, and your body is actively improving as you lay there." She then pulled out a pamphlet set. "I am required by law to
give you these pamphlets, and don't worry about Maul, she will keep this a secret."
"Maul?" the young man muttered, before jerking and looking at Taylor again. Taylor noticed that her headache was still getting worse, but that was about it. "How do you keep doing that?"
"Doing what?" Taylor asked, cocking her head to the side. She honestly wasn't sure what he was talking about.
"Making me forget you are there, or whatever it is that makes me stop paying attention to you?"
"I think that is probably power interactions," Amy interjected. "Given that I am doing everything I can to ensure I don't forget why I am in here in the first place, which hints at some kind of stranger power on your part." Amy looked over at Taylor. "In fact, if not for Maul, I probably would have walked right past your room." Amy then blinked, and looked down at the clipboard she was holding. She then shook herself and looked at the young man. "Given that I keep, er,
not forgetting that you exist so much as thinking you should be someone else's problem and all, well, I think it's more you than her."
"Are you going to report me to the government?"
"Nope," Taylor answered. "It's fairly well known that Panacea has a variant of doctor/patient privilege protecting things she discovers. My knowledge is covered under a number of other things I have signed,
most specifically for today being a privacy agreement for playing bodyguard. Unless, of course, you ask us to, intentionally invalidating that aspect of things."
The young man thought about that, before focusing for a moment.
Taylor actually noticed her headache stopped getting worse, and Amy noticeably relaxed.
Alert: Input/Output channels reset
[Fear. Confusion. Query]
What do you mean where did I come from? You poked me to start with when we were approaching your human's room.
[Confusion]
What do you do for your human anyway?
[Rejection]
Whatever, I was just curious.
"So, I think I got that right," the young man said, shaking his head.
"Or, at least, I seem to no longer want to forget that Maul is in here.
Still, I think I would appreciate it if you could send someone that isn't Maul to talk about things?"
Amy pulled a smaller pad of paper out of her pocket and wrote down the young man's patient number, handing that to Taylor. The PRT would use that to contact him and his family without Taylor ever needing to know his name. Despite that, there was no real form for this kind of thing, amazingly enough. She just had to fire a note off to Carlos, Armsmaster, and Miss Militia with the basics, Director Piggot being the replacement for the Wards leader when the Wards leader was asked about sending someone else. Normally it would be just Carlos and Armsmaster, but the ENE had decided that Miss Militia was better off 'helping' when it came to initial contact.
Taylor did not want to think about the poor parahumans who had Armsmaster as their first post-trigger PRT and Protectorate contact.
If he ever ran into a newly active cape that wasn't already snatched up by some other group he would probably drive them straight to being a villain, and not even realize he did so. Probably by doing something that seemed perfectly logical and efficient unless you took emotions and gut reactions into account.
Amy made some more notations on the file on the clipboard as Taylor sent the messages off, indicating that the young man had a likely stranger ability in the process. That would likely require some more active monitoring on someone's part, but given that he had requested someone who wasn't her due to power interactions it was out of her hands anyway.
A couple of hours later things had wound down. Amy had checked and wondered why Taylor had another thinker-style headache, but didn't press for details. Taylor wasn't actually fully sure what had happened herself, and her snark had been busy muttering and trying not to distract Shaper while Amy was working.
Though all four of them were quite amazed when they reached a recent-arrival little girl who had gotten herself stuck in a near-knot.
She had apparently been trying to imitate a contortionist she saw on TV, but hadn't realized that cape contortionists don't always have to worry about human limitations. Then again, she was six, so she probably would have tried even if she did know that. Taylor snickered when the girl recognized her, but not Amy, and then wanted to know if Vista was there.
The only other things that had been worth noting were the three people who forced their way past the nurses, insisting that they had to see Amy right away. Two of them had been intercepted by security. The last made it to the hallway Taylor and Amy were in, only to be hit in the gut by Taylor's projected glove plates. While reeling from that he was tackled by two security guards. The resulting broken leg was not looked at by Amy, though she did heal up the bruises on the security guards before the individual was brought to be treated by the normal doctors.
"Today has been unusually weird," Amy said, sipping on a coffee one of the nurses had provided now that they were done and relaxing in a break room. "I don't know if that is your fault or not, though."
"I don't know what qualifies as normal," Taylor admitted. "What part was abnormal?"
"The complete lack of damage to the hospital itself. I don't think anyone in New Wave has ever pulled this guard duty without damaging at least one wall, usually on accident. Vicky's average is one damaged wall per floor, except for when she damaged the floor or ceiling instead."
"I could punch a wall on the way out if you want?"
"Please don't," a nurse in the break room with them interjected.
"Besides, there is a bonus headed your way if the hospital isn't damaged by you during your guard duties."
Taylor blinked, not that anyone would be able to tell that. "Last I checked, this fell under normal duties type stuff for me with the PRT?"
"The bonus has been in place since shortly after I started doing these weekends," Amy said, shrugging. "Intended to inspire Vicky to not break walls. So far it has not been collected. By anyone. Most of New Wave have a tendency to cause collateral damage in close quarters."
"Then again, security only let one nutcase through to you today," the nurse mused. "So you had light duty in multiple ways. And you don't fly so the ceiling and floors are safer from accidents, plus you don't appear to have a habit of knocking people into walls with your power.
Shielder almost made it when he covered for Glory Girl a few months back, but one of his shields gouged a wall near the end of the day."
"I am starting to wonder about this town," Taylor said, sighing dramatically. Amy and the nurse both snickered at that one. "So,
what's left today?"
"Not much, just waiting for someone to pick me up," Amy replied.
"Probably Carol or Sarah."
Taylor ended up listening to stories of previous incidents with panicky civilians fearing that they wouldn't be able to get help over the weekend, as well as what kinds of damage had been caused to the hospital. Most were amusing, but there were a couple of serious ones. Such as when the hospital had considered paying the bonus out to Vicky once before despite damage caused. Apparently the only damage that month had been the result of taking down someone waving a loaded gun around outside of pediatrics, and Vicky had taken him down before he got a shot off. They decided not to pay the bonus when they found that she had destroyed an entire restroom in the process.
Eventually Sarah showed up to take Amy home, which caused the crowd of people who didn't have severe enough injuries, or injuries at all in some cases, that had hoped to get Amy's attention anyway to depart. Taylor made her way back to the PRT building to change and head home herself, hoping that she didn't have to do this too often. She suspected it would quite annoying if it came up monthly going forward.
Arriving home, Taylor found that her father had noticed her new rosebush. Right, she hadn't mentioned that to him, had she? Luckily for her all he was concerned about was the care instructions, in case she was on a multi-day trip. Beyond that, she was late enough that she had to reheat her portion of the ordered pizza and breadsticks.
She gave a basic rundown of things to her father, skipping mentions of other parahumans but mentioning the little girl. Her father had been aware of the kid, though, as she had apparently made the evening news. It seemed that she had tried her contortionist trick at school during some kind of event, and an ambulance visiting a school almost always had someone check on the basics.
After Taylor had finished eating they double-checked Taylor's Maul calendar to confirm that she had both the following evening and first thing Sunday morning off, which she did. She had a firearms class on Saturday and a therapy session Sunday afternoon, though she
was planning on going in to play in the junkyard in the morning before her patrol. Probably after visiting the gym, even if she knew she wouldn't run into Amy there over the weekend.
Taylor checked and found it interesting that only Carlos, Brian, and Lisa were scheduled to do anything patrol-related all weekend. In fact, Sunday was blocked off entirely with a code that she didn't recognize. She might have to ask someone about that at some point.
Saturday morning Taylor made good on her decision to visit the gym before making her way to the Wards area, even if she had parked in the secure lot. She found the gym empty, but with signs that someone else had been through recently. Which was mainly a couple of used towels, perhaps Amy had swung by before going over to the hospital?
After having worked out for a bit, Taylor made her way back over to the Wards area. There she found packages waiting for her, which turned out to be two additional jackets, three more extra pairs of gloves as she was expected to wear through those more quickly, a bag full of extra hair ties, and her 'Vista-style' utility belt. She put everything but the jackets and utility belt away. The belt would stay with her civilian stuff and the two jackets were placed to the side to talk to Missy about. After that Taylor got changed and headed down to the junkyard.
Today's junkyard surprise was a selection of Winslow lockers. None of them from the entire floor hers had been on, but that was probably a good thing. Including from a health and safety point of view,
actually, given the state her locker had supposedly been in.
More interesting to Taylor, however, was that she easily recognized two specific lockers in the group once she started looking, if only due to the stickers attached to them. Some manhandling of things later and the group containing Emma's locker was front and center, with the group containing Sophia's waiting to be moved into position.
Taylor got five good hits in on Emma's locker before things went off on a tangent. The lockers had been constructed with a void in the tops, where they had an angled area to prevent people from stacking things on top. One that was sealed from all sides in case the lockers were free-standing instead of installed against a wall. Taylor had cracked that open with her fifth hit, only to find that the empty void wasn't so empty. A crossbow and hunting bolts had popped out.
Taylor might have left it at that, if several of the bolts didn't have brownish residue on the heads. Instead she sighed, her session apparently being cut short. Since Miss Militia was upstairs she seemed to be the best bet for calling in on this.
Once Miss Militia had come down she had also been concerned about the residue and had summoned some additional PRT officers to collect the evidence. Taylor had to give a statement about how she had found things, and during that it was discovered that there was a basic costume and one of Sophia's older masks still in the void, out of initial sight of where Taylor had opened it.
Taylor's prediction of her session being over proved to be correct, as they called for a tinkertech scanning device of some kind to check the rest of the lockers that had been left in the room. Though they did put a 'reserved for Maul' sign on the two locker sets that Taylor had originally singled out, at least. Provided they didn't find reason to take them away for further processing, anyway.
Missy arrived an hour later to find Taylor had eaten half the available donuts as she worked her way through stuff on her tablet. Missy went and got changed, returning in costume and with a 'Maul-style'
utility belt. And a piece of paper.
"Morning Taylor," Missy finally said, given that Taylor hadn't said anything yet. "That interesting?"
"Distracting at least," Taylor mumbled. "Morning."
"Why do you need a distraction?"
"Found one of Shadow Stalker's stashes in the old Winslow lockers in the junkyard, so they kicked me out while they do forensic stuff and check the rest of the lockers."
"Did you get your new utility belt?"
"That and two more jackets. Can you add maul pockets to those? I am less certain about expanding the utility belts themselves, if we are going to use them as civilians."
Missy looked down at her utility belt and pouted. Because Taylor had a good point, so Missy probably shouldn't make her utility belt hold way too much. Taylor herself shook her head as she finished her current page, then got up and went to grab the two new jackets she had received. Missy was still pouting when Taylor came back.
Quick work was made of the two jackets, though Missy had Taylor test the fit of the maul in each just to double-check them.
"What's with the piece of paper?" Taylor asked, gesturing at the sheet Missy had left on the counter.
"Oh, I think the tinkertech handles arrived," Missy said, a grin forming as she pulled out her phone. "Think I could get Armsmaster to swing by after class? I decided I should probably ask him how he would like the extra space laid out instead of guessing."
"Before you send him anything asking him to show up, perhaps you should check to ensure that your package is the handles?"
Missy paused at that, then put her phone away. A moment later she had grabbed the pickup sheet from the counter and was out the door. Taylor blinked, certain that she had missed significant space crunching in use. She then shrugged and turned back to her tablet,
opening the next page on her list.
Ten minutes later Missy returned with a paper-wrapped bundle. Said bundle was quickly torn open to reveal three new handles. Her phone came back out and a message was apparently sent off, likely to Armsmaster. Missy then dragged the handles to her room to store them for later.
Half an hour later Taylor had packed her tablet up and put it, and the two new jackets, away. She and Missy then made their way to their firearms class, passing Carlos on his way in. He looked like he wanted to ask where they were going, but refrained from doing so.
Feelings were mixed after the latest firearms class. On one hand,
their instructor had declared that they had passed pistols, which they were happy with. The class however wasn't over, they had moved onto shotguns. This wasn't in the nationwide syllabus, but being a safety course it had to take into account local conditions. In this case, shotguns had been used more frequently in robberies over the past year, so they had been added to the class so those taking it would be able to safely handle them.
Shotguns were fired in a very different way, and the most common shotgun and ammo combination in use in town resulted in more kick than the pistols had. As such aiming was different, and Missy had looked jealously at Taylor when she found out that Taylor's shoulder didn't hurt. Then again, the shotguns were intended for older, larger people than Missy. The next thing out of Missy's mouth, however,
was a request to be the target of the next fugue Taylor induced with Amy and whomever else it was that helped upgrade Taylor.
Taylor had been amused enough to send the request on to Amy and Riley, even if Amy wouldn't be likely to see it until sometime tonight.
Riley's fairly quick response indicated a willingness to give it a shot,
assuming Missy could be cleared for it. Or Taylor was willing to 'play'
with the idea during a run of the Nine.
Beyond all of that, Missy was also excited. Midway through class she had gotten a message indicating that Armsmaster was willing to
meet with her around three that afternoon. Since Taylor wanted to be there for that they had a couple of hours to kill.
"Want to grab lunch, and then hit the joke shop on the boardwalk?"
Taylor asked. "I want to stock up. In costume."
"Why do you want..." Missy trailed off, getting a grin on her face.
"You want to load up on prank-type stuff just to make people look at you funny when you pull them out, don't you? I'm in."
Carlos and Brian were really confused when the two passed through the Wards area, giggling, so that Missy could grab her wallet that she had left with her civilian clothing. Lisa probably would have been confused too, but she was entering via the gym as the two of them left through the main entrance.
Taylor and Missy had been in the joke shop when Carlos and Brian passed through on patrol, and as such were probably not noticed.
Nor were their other two shopping stops likely noticed. For some reason even the general public was ignoring them as they shopped,
actually. When did people get that polite? Then they returned to the Wards area to find a visibly curious Lisa. But as far as Taylor could tell neither she nor her snark were pushing for answers while she was running the console.
It probably helped that Taylor and Missy had already fit their entire trip's purchases into their utility belts, and as such had no visible bags to give anything away. Then again, the curiosity might have been related to Missy having slight balance issues, not used to the extra weight yet.
Despite having previously agreed that they probably shouldn't, Missy expanded a couple of pouches in both of their 'civilian' utility belts.
The two then transferred some of their stuff from the joke shop into those pouches, which were then covered by a semi-rigid liner they had picked up designed to hold a number of little things securely.
Said liner clipped on one side of the pouch and was intended to sit
along the bottom to stay put. Instead they pulled out a needle and thread and sewed it to the belt side of the pouch, so unclipping it merely let you drop it back down into the expanded pouch as though it were hinged.
By the time they were done each also had a single pouch expanded in that way with some cape-specific stuff. Taylor had some of her pamphlet sets, a couple of domino masks, and a handful of hair ties in hers. Missy at least had some domino masks and had taken one pamphlet set from Taylor's stash, just in case.
By the time the two had gotten everything set it was time to go meet Armsmaster. He had indicated that he would prefer to meet in one of the lab areas if possible, and Missy had agreed. To aid in showing off the trick, as nobody had gotten information out of either of them on it yet, Taylor had put the handles in her suitcase. Her suitcase that was shorter than the handles were long. Missy had even expanded the suitcase even further for the occasion, and Taylor was thinking she would keep the extra space afterwards. If only because it meant less cramming of things down the road.
Lisa gave them another curious look as they walked past her, Taylor towing her suitcase behind her, but she was still on console and left them alone.
"Good afternoon Vista, Maul," Armsmaster greeted as he entered the lab. "Sorry I'm late, I happened upon a mugging on my way over."
"No problem," Missy said, bouncing lightly. She turned to Taylor and gestured for her to get on with things.
"Alright already," Taylor said, shaking her head. She then popped open the suitcase and, as planned, leaned much further into it than she should have been able to. She came back out with two handles,
which she leaned against the wall, before going back in for the third.
Not as planned, however, was overextending and falling in. A
moment later she jumped out with the third handle, which she placed against the wall.
"Might have overdone the expansions there," Missy mused. "Unless we install a ladder for accidents like that when you aren't wearing your harness, anyway?"
"We only made it about twice as deep as I am tall at the deepest,"
Taylor countered. "Even without the harness I can jump out. I didn't even turn it on for that, honestly."
Armsmaster had moved over to the suitcase and was peering inside,
apparently not having expected it to be much larger on the inside. He poked at it a bit, then turned to the two Wards. "How long will the expansion last?"
"Hundred years or so at least," Missy answered. "Being a single solid anchor point and all. Fabric is harder and for some reason supports less, maybe because it isn't rigid? Something made of multiple pieces assembled together, like a standard household closet with planks of wood for flooring and individual wall pieces and all, makes it more difficult to anchor to in the first place but are otherwise fine if left alone afterwards."
"I assume that is how Maul can store her weapon in her jacket?"
"Yep. That was one of the first things I expanded other than my own pockets. Our utility belts hold quite a bit now as well. This method doesn't need me to compress and decompress things, and lasts longer than most of my space-crunching tricks, but as a downside doesn't negate weight. So the more you cram into the expanded space the heavier things get."
"Very intriguing. Was this what you wanted to show me?"
Missy bounced over to where the handles were against the wall. "I complained that I don't make enough in PRT store credit to properly outfit things later. Taylor suggested I approach you, as you can direct
some of your own funds to the Wards when they assist you.
Specifically, she thought you might like some new halberd handles that were bigger on the inside."
An hour later Missy and Armsmaster had come to an agreement.
They had lost Taylor a quarter of the way through, but that probably had more to do with Taylor pulling her tablet out of the suitcase pocket she had stuck it in and going back to her information and forms. Armsmaster had three new tinkertech handles with internal expanded spaces in different configurations, Missy had a promise of additional PRT store credit by the end of the following week, and they had hashed out a plan to meet in a few days to figure out how to do something similar to some compartments on Armsmaster's motorcycle. Or new parts for his motorcycle? Taylor wasn't sure.
Taylor learned most of this after Armsmaster had left, when Missy latched onto her in thanks for the idea and demonstration help.
Half an hour later Taylor was on her way home, wondering how her evening with Kurt and Lacey was going to go.
Last edited: Dec 8, 2017
Chapter 40 Taylor had arrived home shortly before dinnertime would normally be, if they weren't doing whatever it was Kurt was dragging them off to do. Due to that, instead of eating she had shown her father her new utility belt. She even showed him the hidden expanded spaces,
which he thought were clever. He then got her to effectively add an entire first aid kit amongst the various pouches, and an actual first aid kit in one of the expanded pouches. It barely fit through the opening.
That took enough time for the taxi Kurt had paid for to show up to pick them up. Danny sighed, and Taylor wondered if it was a parking thing or the lack of designated driver a taxi implied. The two locked the house up and got in the taxi, which took them to a bar on the edge of the docks. Which admittedly had minimal parking, but Taylor suspected that drinks were in their future either way.
Being shown to a 'private' booth in the main bar area reinforced that belief, and got Danny a bit annoyed. "You do know that my daughter isn't old enough to drink, right?"
"She isn't old enough to drink without your presence," Kurt retorted.
"With you here you can grant permission for her to drink. They passed that particular law three years ago, and you should know that since I recall you and Annette arguing over whether or not it should have gone through."
Lacey was giggling, and Taylor had rolled her eyes. Danny was glaring at Kurt, but likely knew the other man had a point. Granted,
the law had originally been proposed as a way to deal with an underage cape that actually needed to consume alcohol every week,
but got split into two parts. One part was designed to disguise the civilian identity of said cape by allowing anyone to permit their under drinking age children to drink, either with their presence or by requesting a special ID card for the child. The other part allowed any
Ward or under drinking age Protectorate member to drink when an above drinking age Protectorate member provided the alcohol.
An odd side effect of the wording was that non-government parahumans, affiliated or not, were in an odd position legally. Mainly,
you couldn't card them in costume, but you could decide they looked too young to serve. If you wanted. New Wave was a notable exception, as their identities and thus ages weren't a secret.
Taylor wondered if she should get her father to sign off on the permanent permission, if only so she could freak people out more easily later? After all, it wasn't like she would use it to get drunk,
right?
"So, here's the plan," Kurt said, reclaiming Taylor's attention as he gestured at her and Danny. "You two have a couple of drinks with dinner, loosen up, and actually talk. Lacey and I make sure you don't drink or talk too much and that you both get home ok."
Lacey had apparently not been involved in the planning, because her giggling just got worse. Kurt was giving her odd looks as a result.
"We got through things a couple days ago," Danny finally said. "I told you that, even. You just didn't believe me."
"Still don't, really," Kurt responded. "I figure the two of you would both be willing to lie about it just to get out of this, actually."
Kurt had a point there, actually. Annoying as it was. Taylor might have said something about it, but she was currently a bit distracted by an approaching snark. One she believed she had seen before,
but had never spoken to. She originally thought they were just passing through, but they had turned straight towards the bar a moment ago. Better at least say hi to the snark.
Hello?
[Confusion. Query]
No, I am not looking to fight. I just have trouble ignoring snarks until I have spoken to them, and your human is approaching the building I am in. Do you like to fight?
[Agreement. Introduction]
Crap. Taylor was pretty certain who was about to enter the bar. Why did Kurt decide to do this tonight, and here? Then again, this was a bar, and it was Amy's weekend, so it was unlikely anything major would happen. On the other hand, she was a bit surprised. She wasn't expecting an understanding snark that took 'my powers drive me to talk to you' at face value.
You call yourself Battle Escalation? So does that mean your human gets stronger to fight stronger opponents?
[Agreement. Query]
Er, sorry. I don't know of anyone who would want to fight your human right now. We are in a semi-peaceful weekend so a healer can see people from outside of the area?
[Understanding. Agreement. Query]
Yea, that had to be Lung's snark. Damnit. Even if it was oddly reasonable, given Lung's reputation.
No, as I understand it there shouldn't be anyone that actually wants to fight tonight, or tomorrow.
[Acceptance]
"Kurt," Taylor finally said aloud. "I don't care how reasonable his snark is. I blame you for whatever happens tonight."
Lacey stopped giggling at that, looking concerned, while Kurt and Danny looked at Taylor like she had just grown an extra head. Then again, they didn't quite realize who was likely about to enter. Even if
his snark actually agreed with the general idea of not screwing with healers. It was confusing Taylor a bit, really.
A moment later, just as Kurt was opening his mouth to say something, the door to the bar was thrown open. Everyone in a position to do so turned to look at the door, to find Lung walking through it. Taylor turned back to Kurt, who had paled. As had Lacey,
though her father looked like he wasn't concerned at all. Then again,
he may not actually remember that one bar fight with Lung.
She might have to dig out a copy of the pictures, just to remind him.
Huh, maybe that could work to help her convince him to sign some forms. Something to consider when not dealing with this whole situation.
Lung had looked around the room, and scowled. He was wearing a variant on his normal mask, one that left his mouth exposed. This was a fairly well known version in town, though, as he wore it whenever he went drinking.
"I seek a challenge," Lung finally said, speaking slowly as if to ensure he was understood. Then again, he also had a reputation for having issues with English at times. "Will anyone put their ability to hold their liquor against my own?"
Taylor blinked at that, and looked at the other three. Color was returning, and Lacey had started grinning. Her father was looking between Taylor and Lacey, before he facepalmed. Kurt looked confused. And relieved, but that was probably because Lung was even less prone to violence when in a drinking contest.
Well, unless you cheated. Then he got angry. Nobody liked him when he was angry.
"Just go," Danny finally said, giving Taylor a little push. "Probably a better use of our time tonight anyway."
Taylor grinned, but discreetly pulled out both of her phones and set a twelve hour shutdown on Bluetooth for each. If it turned out her 'practically immune' was merely 'really high tolerance' she would not be able to send things like drunken texts as easily later. Once that was done she joined those willing to take the challenge.
Only three people had ever drunk Lung under the table, and one of them had cheated. The other two were known brutes, in costume,
and supposedly the rules Lung operated under had been amended after each. She had joined three others, and she was the odd one out. She was the only female, and the only minor. And it looked like the only one that didn't wear double extra large or better clothing.
While she had been making these observations the bartender had moved over and talked to her father, probably getting his permission for her to drink, before coming back.
"Before you begin," the bartender said, obviously used to this kind of thing. A couple of men were dragging a table out to the middle of the room, while another set up a whiteboard for scoring. "There are some questions you need to answer. To start with, these first few I am going to have to ask you to go sit back down if you would answer yes to any of them. Please only sit down when I am done asking, so as to provide plausible deniability on one of them."
The four of them nodded. The bartender asked if they had medical conditions that would be problematic with excessive drinking, if they had any legal injunctions against heavy drinking due to things like parole conditions, if they were on any medications that could react negatively with sufficient alcohol, and a couple other things. Several medications and medical conditions were listed outright, as they were only an issue with excessive alcohol. The one for plausible deniability was asking if they had a parahuman ability that would negate the effects of alcohol during the contest. He clarified that one,
saying that after the contest was fine, as Lung would likely use his to wipe the intoxication later, and mild negation was fine. Lung, after all,
had a mild negation until he ramped up.
One of the other three had sat down after that, mumbling about some allergy medication, before the bartender looked over the remaining three of them, having each verbally state that none of the questions applied to them. Though he did check something under the counter for some reason each time. "Well, the lie detector seems to agree that none of you should be excluded. So, for reference purposes, are any of you angry drunks? We like to be prepared for them."
The other two indicated that they were not, and then the bartender turned to Taylor. Who shrugged. "I've only ever been lightly buzzed before, and haven't gotten even that far recently."
The bartender nodded, and no questions about modifications or applications of an outside parahuman ability were asked. Which would just make this more amusing, really. At least for those who knew her secrets. Too bad she couldn't call Dinah to ask about the chances of one being added after tonight.
First names were collected, or rather confirmed as the bartender apparently knew them already, and everyone sat down at the table.
Lung looked over the three challengers, but focused on Taylor. "Does the PRT know what their hime is up to?"
Taylor wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, she might have to do some research later. Still, what did the PRT's thoughts matter when she was in her civilian identity, with her father present? "I don't think they have any reason to care."
Lung snorted at that, then looked back at the other two, and barked what Taylor thought was a question at one of the others. It wasn't in English, though, so Taylor wasn't actually certain. The man responded with something Lung apparently agreed with, though. The last man was ignored as the first round of drinks was brought out.
Apparently tonight was a whisky night, a starter set of two bottles were placed before each of the four at the table. The bartender then had them start with half a bottle, because shots weren't enough for
Lung. Taylor casually drank down her first half bottle, not rushing like one of the other two was and not acting all timid like the other was.
Amy and Riley did good work, because she barely felt a burn.
Taylor wasn't all that surprised when things ended up down to her and Lung. She knew she was going to need to spend some time on the toilet after this, given that she was fairly certain she had consumed more alcohol than she should have. More liquid in general, really. Wasn't there something she should be worried about where if you drink too much you can die, even if it is water?
As a side benefit, however, after the third bottle of whisky she actually started getting a buzz. It felt like when she had consumed a single beer in the past, but at least she had one. So she wasn't fully immune. Take that, Amy and Riley! But not really, because they would probably see it as a challenge to overcome. Teenagers were supposed to be able to get drunk, damn it!
She had reached her fourth bottle, and was halfway through it, when Lung gave in to his own intoxication. He was only a quarter of the way through his own fourth bottle, which meant that Taylor had won.
She looked down at the bottle she was holding, before shrugging and downing the rest of it.
Supposedly Lung normally had between eight and ten minutes of being knocked-out drunk before his power would kick in, thinking it was an attack or something and ramping him up long enough for him to recover. Until then he would lay there on the table, snoring. Which meant even less trouble than starting a fight to trigger a ramp up. But that probably meant she wouldn't get to punch him either. Hmmm,
which was better, peacefully sobered Lung or fight-sobered Lung?
Tough call. Punching him sounded fun right now.
"Well then miss," the bartender said, coming over with a small device and interrupting her train of thought. "The only thing left is to run one last check. Would you mind breathing into this?"
Taylor blinked as she took the device. A breath test? Really? Why was that needed? Oh well, whatever the reason she might as well,
so did as asked. A minute later the device beeped, causing the bartender to take it back. He looked down at the reading, then looked back up at Taylor, eyes having gone slightly wide.
"After all you drank, the reading only surprises me in that you are not passed out or dead," the bartender admitted. "How is it that you are barely affected?"
"Tinkers. Stupid annoying wonderful tinkers that told me I wouldn't get drunk anymore," Taylor said, grinning. "But I showed them! Huh,
is everything supposed to spin slightly when you're drunk?"
The bartender looked back down at the reading on the device and snorted, before collecting the empty bottles. He had collected the unopened bottles from the other two participants when they passed out, but had left their partially consumed bottles. After all, they might want them when they woke up.
Taylor looked around the room several times, before spotting and returning to her father, Kurt, and Lacey. She made it to the booth with minimal issue, and dropped down into her seat with a grin on her face. On her second try, having missed the seat the first time.
"Congrats," Lacey said, poking at her smartphone. When did she get a smartphone? No, wait, Kurt and Lacey never shunned cell phones,
that was her and her father. "Your victory is already on PHO, a couple of pictures of you downing the rest of that last bottle with Lung passed out next to you were just posted." Taylor backed up her thoughts again, because she thought Lacey had a flip phone? Meh,
probably wasn't important.
Taylor got lost in Broadcast Administrator's mumblings for a bit, she thought she might have been eating something as well too? But she wasn't entirely sure what it was mumbling about. Then again, it had been doing that since the day before anyway. Eventually, however,
she was pulled out of it. By her father, poking her. In the forehead.
"Earth to Taylor," Danny said, apparently noticing Taylor's eyes focus again. "You alright?"
"Which Earth?" Taylor asked, sounding honestly curious. "Because snarks live on other Earths. Or sometimes other Venuses? I wonder how many other planets they live on." Taylor started to zone out again, before she was pulled out of her seat by Lacey. And flat onto her face, because she wasn't expecting to suddenly be standing, so her legs were still in a sitting configuration.
"Come on kid," Lacey said, helping her up. "There is no way you don't have a full bladder situation approaching, and I really don't want to have to deal with cleaning you up."
Taylor found herself dragged off to the restroom. She almost missed the bartender approaching her father with a bag. Why did he need a bag?
Sunday morning Taylor woke up in her bed, her stomach growling.
The last thing she remembered was sitting on a toilet, and before that was fuzzy. And maybe that was several different times she sat on a toilet all jumbled together. Though somehow she thought she had finally figured out what some of Broadcast Administrator's mumbling was about. But why it was concerned about her brain not being designed as an energy conduit was currently lost on her.
Maybe she would ask about that later. After she figured out everything else that had gone on.
But before all of that, she needed to use the bathroom.
"Good morning Taylor," Danny said as he entered the kitchen. Taylor was on her second bowl of cereal and was finally starting to feel normal-ish. "Did you find your winnings?"
"My what?" Taylor asked, blinking. What did she do that warranted winnings? She should move figuring out what happened last night up
on her list.
"You out-drank Lung, which means you got a five hundred dollar prize. I left it on your desk."
"Oh. I did what?"
"Perhaps you should go check PHO after you finish your cereal.
Lacey said they covered things quite well."
Taylor stared at her father. She was starting to remember the bar,
now. And Lung with his challenge. Apparently she won, which was good, but she was getting a lot more worried about what she had done afterwards. That, and there was the question of what the public thought about her stunt.
Finishing her cereal off a little faster than she had originally intended,
Taylor then went and got her tablet, noting that there was a pile of twenties on her desk. It didn't take her long to find multiple threads from the night before. Her father was being accused of being irresponsible due to her heavy drinking. Yet being defended because she won. And was that a video of her dancing on a table? And at least one person claimed to have seen the breathalyzer test device,
and it showed that she should have been very dead?
So far it looked like the public perception of her own actions, instead of her father's, was a combination of 'teenagers, what can you do?'
and complete disbelief. Oh, and there was a list of places all over the country that had decided she was barred from participating in drinking contests held in their businesses. Huh, there was even a freshly posted clip from the morning news covering her victory, fairly positive overall. But it had an undertone of "underage drinking is bad" thrown in, showing the tabletop dancing she already knew about and a couple other instances of her making a fool of herself.
A few minutes later Taylor had decided that knowing was not a good thing. Ignorance was bliss and all that, but that it was also now too late. A quick check of her phones showed that she had, luckily, not
sent any drunken texts. How she had accomplished that with a Bluetooth interface in her brain she wasn't quite sure. But it was a good thing she had checked, as she might not have noticed that Amy had responded to the relaying of Missy's request. In particular,
her position was that Missy could get an upgrade after they figured out how to get Amy an upgrade. Given that Amy couldn't work on herself and all.
That made Taylor realize that one thing she should be very happy about was her lack of hangover. She sent Amy and Riley a thank you for that, at least. She had woken hungry, and in need of emptying her bladder, but no headache or sensitivity. Then again, she also woke with pretty much no decent memory past the third or so bottle?
Or at least she thought that was when things got especially fuzzy.
Dennis, Dean, and Missy were waiting for Taylor's arrival in the Wards area later that morning, all sitting around in civilian attire. As soon as she entered the room they all started clapping.
"Congratulations," Dean said. "It isn't everyday that anyone beats Lung. At anything."
"I want to know how you kept going long enough to cause Lung to pass out for six hours," Dennis said. "Because he has never stayed out that long before. The bar had customers all night just to take pictures."
Six hours? What? Taylor pulled a phone out just to go look. It didn't take long to find that Lung's unusually long drunken nap was an entirely different thread, which she had skipped when looking for her own antics. What in the world caused that? Though she had to admit that the hundreds of pictures and short video clips, most including people standing there with the passed out Lung, were amusing.
"I have no clue why he stayed passed out," Taylor finally said. "I mean, as people pointed out, he has had that much alcohol before. I don't recall doing anything that would keep him passed out."
"Do you recall doing anything at all?" Missy asked. "Given how much you drank, and your drunken antics and all?"
"Ok, you might have a point. But it isn't like I can casually shut down powers for hours on end or anything."
Then again, perhaps checking would be best here.
I can't do anything like that, can I?
Negative
That was good, she hadn't suddenly spawned random new abilities with no logical reason to suddenly exist.
"Any chance I can get changed and head to my appointment?"
Taylor asked, preventing Dennis from saying something else. The three Wards sheepishly let her go, probably having forgotten that she would have had a reason to show up when she did in the first place. All three made their way to the gym, somewhat hastily.
Fifteen minutes later Taylor was on her way up the corner stairwell for her second meeting with Jessica. She had grabbed one of her spare jackets as a simple way of leaving weapons behind today,
since she was fairly certain they weren't going to be needed. Really,
she wasn't sure why she was in costume at all, but it seemed wrong to go to a 'Maul' calendar appointment in civilian attire.
Taylor made her way back to the Wards area slowly. Jessica had started the session by thanking Taylor for 'settling' her own powers,
and then they had dove into today's topic.
Unlike the first session, which was about starting with actual issues the underage parahuman had, this session was a PRT-mandated one for those thirteen or older. It was, in effect, the parahuman side of the 'talk'. Snarks had a varying influence on their humans, and apparently romantic and sexual attractions were just another area
that had to be dealt with. It was also highly individual, each parahuman reacting differently. Which meant a lot of very embarrassing questions, imagery, and discussion to suss things out.
In Taylor's case, they had determined that she had an aversion to romantic or sexual relations unless it was with a parahuman, in general. This was apparently common in 'social' snarks, a term used to describe snarks that desired non-combat interaction with other parahumans. Further, due to her powerset she was likely to need to get along with the snark as well as the human, and to have her snark get along with their snark. Jessica had found that aspect of things 'fascinating' for some reason, but then again it was happening to Taylor, not to Jessica. Perhaps Taylor would have found it less embarrassing had it not been happening to her?
Beyond that, Jessica didn't think that Taylor had any snark-based physical attraction criteria. On the other hand, Taylor wasn't sure she had any hard and fast physical form preferences to begin with.
Jessica hinted that events at Winslow had likely helped to shift her preferences away from physical appearances and more into needing a trust relationship, regardless of physical attributes. Then again, it was also possible that she never really had a specific ideal physical form she was attracted to. It was too late to tell at this point, and probably didn't matter either way going forward.
She was not going to think too much about the accidental revelation that she might have had the beginnings of a crush on Emma at the time of the betrayal, if the trust-thing was natural and not a product of her snark or the events leading up to her trigger. That road led to madness, and not the good kind that could be manipulated for maximum personal amusement.
Other issues that had come up included more physical topics. Taylor was an artificial brute with enhanced strength, and might need to take that into account with a partner even if she did have a sort of mental 'off' switch. She was also tougher, however, which opened up more potential partners as she would have less issues with some brutes. Of course, being tougher had potential downsides, and Taylor
wasn't sure what Amy would think of the questions Jessica had made Taylor promise to ask. But the embarrassment was probably worth it. She wasn't all that keen on not knowing if she still had an intact hymen and if so details about it. Specifically, was it tougher like her skin or would it 'grow back' due to her enhanced healing.
Embarrassing, yes, but also very important to know.
Taylor arrived back at the Wards area to find Miss Militia waiting for her. None of the other Wards had hung around after their gym visit,
though Battery was elsewhere in the building. Eating something,
perhaps?
"Good afternoon Maul," Miss Militia said as Taylor entered the common area. "I have some comfort food here, if you want some."
Taylor blinked and noted that 'comfort food' included a large pile of chocolate. "Er, yea. Hi Miss Militia. Comfort food?"
"Wards react to that particular required discussion in various ways.
Most commonly running off to hide, to beat something or someone to a pulp, or for some reason seeking to eat quite a bit. Given your session was scheduled for today the Wards were requested to be scarce, partially in case you went the 'beat someone to a pulp' route,
though as I understand it a few showed up anyway before your session to congratulate you on your victory over Lung."
Taylor blinked and grabbed a chocolate bar. Had everyone but her known what was coming?
"Yes, the other Wards generally knew what you were getting into today," Miss Militia answered, despite Taylor not having voiced the question. "You got the Sunday slot as you have school to worry about. Grue and Mycroft have their sessions Tuesday and Thursday,
which is why they are blocked out for Wards patrols like today was.
Otherwise, though, the rest of them have had a similar discussion with one of the therapists already."
"I suppose that makes sense, then," Taylor admitted. "Though now you made me wonder why Tuesday and Thursday."
"If you check the city-wide internal PRT calendar you would see that Glory Girl has a probation-mandated therapy session tomorrow after school. As for Wednesday, Countdown is getting her 'talk' session then a little ahead of normal schedule. We're a bit time-crunched on things because Jessica has to spend somewhere between a couple of days and a couple of weeks in Boston starting the coming weekend, and the Youth Guard jumped on us to get things out of the way. Protectorate members need to have had their session before they are supposed to interact with Wards on their own, and we had three Wards on the local roster of the appropriate age that hadn't had their talks. We're only supposed to delay when our buffer is at most two parahumans and the therapists are all busy."
Ah yes, the dreaded Youth Guard. Horrible people doing their best to keep the Wards safe and sane, even if it is to the detriment of the Ward's sanity! Or at least that is how it felt right now.
"If you'd like to ask anything after your session please feel free to speak up at any time, or to find any female Protectorate member to talk to them. But from prior experience I doubt you want to talk about your session right now," Miss Militia continued. Taylor was 100% in agreement with not talking about her session, and took a bite of her chocolate bar to show it. "There are a couple of other things I wanted to mention." Taylor just nodded, as her mouth was currently full of chocolate. Glorious chocolate. "For one, they finished with the lockers and other Winslow items, so the junkyard is open again.
They even left both sets of lockers you had singled out, including the reserved for signs."
Taylor thought about that for a second, and then grinned. That sounded like a wonderful way to spend the afternoon. All the glorious pummeling she could hopefully do! Huh, chewing was harder when grinning, or was it grinning was harder when chewing? She swallowed her chocolate, making grinning easier.
"Next up is that the hospital got back to us about your guard duty with Panacea," Miss Militia said as she pulled out an envelope. "PRT rules state that 'did not cause collateral damage' is not a suitable reason for a reward payment, given that you are supposed to avoid damage in the first place. They instead asked us to pass along this sealed envelope with a thank you letter. I highly recommend opening it at home, where any additional contents, of which I expect there to be none, won't need to be on record."
The slightly bulging envelope was quickly moved into a pocket,
Taylor holding back a snicker in the process.
"Beyond that, Armsmaster mentioned this morning that he would like you to go on a trip this coming weekend," Miss Militia said, pulling out a single sheet of paper. "Specifically, a trip out of the country.
Your PRT-issued passports should arrive by Thursday either way,
and your father already cleared things verbally, but both you and your father will need to sign this form as well, should you agree to go."
"What kind of trip would he need me on out of the country?" Taylor asked, taking the form and giving it a once-over. It said nothing of interest, actually. Well, beyond that departure should be Friday night and they would return on Sunday.
"I believe he and Dragon wish to attempt a tinker fugue at a Guild facility Dragon has been preparing for the occasion. Kid Win and Countdown are also being invited, the stated goal is to hopefully create something effective against the Endbringers. You are needed to trigger the fugue, so the trip won't happen if you don't agree. As for the other two, Kid Win has been shown to be able to function in a fugue with Armsmaster, and Countdown's specialty may be of use.
Not to mention it will hopefully cement that she may be better off with a team. The ego on that girl..." Miss Militia seemed to go into a bit of a mumbling rant, Taylor couldn't quite make out enough to understand it. She suspected it wasn't even in English.
Thinking about the request, Taylor wasn't sure she could say no to something like that, even if she did agree with Vivian having an ego.
She would probably need to talk to her father about it either way,
even if he had given verbal consent already. On the other hand, that did leave one question.
"Given that this is a request from Dragon and Armsmaster," Taylor said, ending Miss Militia's rant. "Why are you relaying it?"
"Armsmaster has been temporarily barred from directly requesting your time after the Cornell incident," Miss Militia replied, shrugging. "I volunteered to bring it up. Battery also volunteered and might have done so instead, except you came back here instead of going straight for ice cream. I was going to wait for you here either way,
figuring you would need to change eventually."
"Who would go straight for ice cream after a discussion like that?"
"I'm told a couple of the boys did, but I don't have details as we aim for male Protectorate members being around after their sessions."
Huh, a sensible policy that was very hard to refute. Then again...
"And no, Armsmaster is not on that list," Miss Militia said, obviously knowing where Taylor's thoughts were going. "And likely never will be, as the goal is to reduce the potential mental trauma when the Ward has immediate questions, not increase it."
Well, the boys were probably very happy that someone, somewhere,
had enough common sense to push that decision through.
Taylor returned home after ensuring that all but one set of Winslow lockers was rendered into scrap. The only remaining set had actually come from the gym, and had what could be seen as a hidden compartment she knew about under the leftmost locker's floor. She had used that on occasion, but not frequently enough that the Trio would have been likely to notice. Due to the unusual fond memories
of getting one over on the Trio, rare as it was, she couldn't bring herself to destroy it. Instead she put it up against the wall next to the door. Either someone else would destroy them, or they might become an unofficial set of lockers for the room.
She wasn't sure which she would prefer.
She found her father in the kitchen, looking over a new oven and stovetop. Brand new, it seemed, as the protective film over the controls was still in place, and he was holding the near-pristine manual as he looked over things.
"I could have sworn that you claimed there were financial issues with getting a brand new oven," Taylor said, an eyebrow raised. "Which was one reason you had been talking to Kurt, trying to decide how to replace the broken hinges?"
"That was before I made a killing betting on you to out-drink Lung,"
Danny replied. "You got the five hundred dollar pot and didn't have to pay for your drinks. I cleaned out pretty much every casual gambler in a six block radius, taking home a little over three grand. Coupled with a sale over at Bill's, who also offers same day delivery, I felt it was worth the expense."
Taylor had to admit that made sense. If she had noticed her father betting on things then she didn't remember it, but that wasn't a surprise given how little she remembered. "So, Miss Militia told me that you would know about my permission slip for a trip to Canada?"
"Ah, yes. I almost said no when she called earlier, but I decided that a grudge against Armsmaster wasn't a good enough excuse when Endbringers are involved. That and it was apparently Dragon's idea,
and I don't have a grudge against her."
"I suppose that makes sense. So, outside of disliking Armsmaster right now, what other concerns do you have?"
"Most of them are standard parent things that I know I need to get over because you are growing up. Even if some of it I had to have all but beaten into my head by Lacey. Others are, according to Miss Militia, standard 'parent of a parahuman' things that I need to get over because the only known ways to make you no longer a parahuman are all worse, and not guaranteed to work unless they kill you."
Taylor thought about that. Snarks gave people powers, right?
Couldn't they just, well, stop? "Let me see what my snark says about that, because I am now very curious."
So, can snarks just decide to stop giving someone powers?
Data
Taylor paled a little at that. What do you mean the connection is permanent?
Elaboration
So, the initial connection makes our brains dependent on the connection, so if a snark ever disconnects it creates major issues unless some of the changes are reversed at the same time?
Agreement. Data
Ok, yes, I can see why you have been set to never disconnect from a living host, even if you don't want to work with them anymore, and even to reconnect if they 'come back' somehow.
... Distinction
You can't choose to disconnect, but your ultimate parents can decide that for you? Why does that sound like a bad thing?
Kumquat
What the? Crap, there was likely something there that her snark couldn't tell her, even using loopholes. And it seemed important. Oh well, nothing she could do about it for now. Maybe her snark would figure out a workaround later?
"So, yes," Taylor said. "Snarks can't safely disconnect normally, as parahuman brains are modified to need the connection." The rest would not be relayed to her father, ever, if she could help it. She might want to relay it to the PRT though.
"That is apparently basically known already, but confirmation is nice,"
Danny said. "So, where is the permission slip? Unless you don't want to go play in Canada next weekend, of course."
"I think I am more interested in meeting Dragon," Taylor admitted,
pulling the permission slip out. "Prior experience tells me that I am unlikely to remember much of the actual fugue, after all."
Danny took the permission slip to read over. Taylor took advantage of that to pull her 'Maul' phone out to fill in the parahuman information form. The PRT might already know enough of it that they wouldn't pay anything to speak of for it, but either way it was safer to ensure they did know. There were sayings about people who assumed, after all.
"I don't see anything wrong with this," Danny finally said, pulling a pen out of a pocket to sign his agreement. "Do try and keep me a little more in the loop as you travel this time. Let me know when you leave, when you get there, when you are coming back. That kind of thing. Even if this basically says you won't be able to be in contact during things."
"I'll do my best to remember," Taylor said as she took the paper and offered pen to sign her own name to it. "I never did check how I am supposed to submit this, though."
"Think one of those magic paperwork boxes will show up out of the blue?"
"I suspect I just need to drop it off where I dropped off the firearms class forms, so probably not."
That evening Taylor ended up on the phone with Amy, who really wanted to know about the drinking contest the night before. Taylor had to admit that she had no clue, because her memory was shot.
She did get the questions she needed to ask out of the way, and discovered that her hymen was already gone, probably specifically because of the potential issues Jessica had brought up. None of them were really fully certain about all the decisions that had been made, but that made the most sense.
Amy had also asked about the bonus. Taylor explained the rules,
and how the hospital had sent her three hundred dollars despite them. Complete with a thank you letter that implied that 'lunch money' had been included. They both were positive that absolutely nobody was being fooled, and that it was probably only being allowed so long as it didn't become a regular thing.
Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
Interlude: Protectorate Think-Tank The Protectorate think-tank was made up of a couple dozen thinkers,
all pooling their abilities and resources to solve problems. Unlike what people assumed, however, they were not based in Washington D.C., though they intentionally kept that myth going. They were actually spread all over the country and had high-bandwidth connections to enable easier collaboration.
Granted, they were originally based in D.C., but then they realized that made them a potential target for Endbringers to take the entire group out in one attack, so they spread out.
This morning they were, per usual, looking at dozens of things. One of those things was a Wards application that had been flagged by the lower level analysts the day before. The initial implications were not good, as the potential Ward had claimed the capability to unintentionally violate the unwritten rules, and a number of written laws, and a large number of PRT and Protectorate rules. Just by existing. A thinker that could tell if something handwritten was the truth as the writer knew it, one of the reasons they kept using paper forms for many things, looked over it and determined that it was not likely a lie. That created some panic with figuring out the potential headaches and if the potential Ward could be trusted.
Of course, that was before one thinker that spontaneously knew when two things were connected, but not how or why, flagged that the Wards application was connected to an incident with Glory Girl the previous weekend. That connection was passed across the country to a thinker that could build upon existing connections, but only if they hadn't personally made the original connection. They pegged the potential Ward as the source of Glory Girl's issues.
Which bounced over to another thinker that had insights into the cause and effect of powers, who pegged it as a bad interaction between the two and that the potential Ward had won the resulting mental battle.
An hour later they were having issues getting anything else done as they went through everything that could possibly go wrong with the potential Ward if they ran into various parahumans. In the middle of all of this the thinker who randomly knew things were connected flagged a different file as connected to the application, a highly classified report that they couldn't even read themselves. That had gone through five other thinkers before they had figured anything out, determining that the potential Ward had loosened the restrictions on another parahuman. The potential with that was both terrifying and highly intriguing. The possibilities if that could be controlled boggled the mind...
Two representatives of the think tank were in a conference call with Jacob, the potential Ward's uncle and, known to both representatives but not the entire think tank, Jack Slash of the Slaughterhouse Nine.
The potential Ward's power connection had been sussed out fairly early on by those who were read in on the Nine, but had been kept largely secret from the rest of the think tank. Not that keeping that secret was helping, given that the rest of the think tank was listening in and that aspect was the least of their worries.
They had confirmation that the potential Ward believed that they could identify parahumans they had seen before, possibly identify them through their agents just by being within a few hundred meters of them, and likely permanently be able to identify those parahumans in the future by proximity alone. And most of the think tank agreed with those conclusions. The parallels with Jacob's own kinetic projection ability were minor by comparison.
On a whim they decided that taking up nearly all of the think tank's time for a couple of days warranted a monument of some kind, so a brick wall was commissioned. After all, they had collectively shat enough bricks in panic over all of this to build one, right?
The think tank was examining the data from 'Maul' healing in the hospital. While the scattered reports of powers being used or
expressing themselves in new ways had been interesting and all they hadn't taken long to evaluate and were mostly uninteresting. A non-healing agent healing the host's brain, however, was fascinating.
Armsmaster had come through with detailed scans of some of the process and most of the think tank members wanted to find out more.
The thinker who could tell things were connected, however, had just thrown a new data point at them. The healing was connected to Panacea. That was being passed around to see if anyone could figure out how they were connected. Another thinker noted that the rate of healing had gone up with Panacea present, but they had no reports from Panacea at this point to know why. The healing rate hadn't gone down afterwards, though, even when Panacea had left Maul's range. A request was generated to ask Panacea for details.
Suddenly a thinker fired a message across the think tank, indicating that Maul's agent was likely actively communicating with Panacea's agent despite Maul being unconscious, working on its own initiative to heal its host. Panacea's agent was likely providing real-time monitoring data to assist. Several thinkers paled at that implication,
because it went beyond what they previously thought they knew of agents and their motivations.
The think tank had monitored the multi-tinker fugue that Maul had initiated, new connections and information jumping out at them the entire time. Oh, and the tinkertech was interesting, but was secondary to the effect Maul was permitting. The growing pile of reports of insights or changes to powers due to interaction with the girl was becoming more fascinating over time as well as they used that information to form a more complete overall picture.
Those in the know had already pieced together who had participated in the previous multi-tinker fugue and wished that it had been recorded as well, but that touched on too many secrets.
Of course, then one thinker had to ruin the feeling of awe the entire think tank was experiencing by asking a single question. "What would happen if she was near enough tinkers during a Ziz attack?"
The following day additions were ordered for two brick walls.
The think tank pondered the information they had been asked to look over. The main question was if an attempt to locate the parahuman at Cornell was likely to work if the parahuman was still on campus.
On one hand their primary plan was to use a tinkertech cape detector that was only rated for areas with a low number of capes,
less than five in particular. On the other they were bringing the walking violation of the unwritten rules with them as Panacea's honor guard.
Several of the think tank smirked when it became obvious to them that the tinkertech solution was going to be useless. The response they constructed, however, was intentionally misleading. After all,
how much was it really their fault if the field team misinterpreted what their reference to the 'cape detector' meant?
The think tank had gotten another report of a parahuman having their power change in some way due to Maul, but this time the change was more mental. This frightened the lot of them, as it was an apparent deliberate attempt to change not how the agent functioned, but how the agent acted. That had worked, and through that had changed how the host thought and behaved without changing their capabilities. If Maul could do that to anyone, and the think tank was inconclusive on the chances of that, then there was a good chance that Maul could effectively master any parahuman she interacted with. The fact that she hadn't yet done so to any other parahuman was the only thing preventing a group panic attack.
This time they decided that they would have a fountain added to the wall, if only because they couldn't resist playing with the metaphor.
Yellow lighting and/or dye for the water in the fountain was rejected as being too crass and for not being subtle enough.
As soon as the fountain had been ordered another thinker posed a different question. One that made the entire group pause at the potential implications. "We know she can link up tinkers, but can she link up thinkers?"
The think tank had been down for nearly a week, and was finally getting back up and running again. The thinkers were all quite happy to get back to work, but started with making sure that the communications network hadn't developed issues in their absence.
Luckily all the tests were coming back clean. It was also a very nice thing to know that protocols still worked, even if the end result had been unpleasant. But they had learned a couple of things.
First, they collectively had a problem with potentially inappropriate running gags. The park full of brick walls was the primary example,
but not the only one by far. It had been determined that it likely stemmed from their agents, so there wasn't much they could do about it.
Second, master/stranger protocols were a pain in the ass when someone called them on you for potentially inappropriate running gags.
Last edited: Apr 26, 2018
Chapter 41 Monday morning Taylor stopped at an intersection, checking for any traffic that might be about to barrel through the intersection despite the stop signs. She quickly determined that it was safe, and crossed the intersection on her moped. At the same time she mentally looked over the messages that had just arrived on her Maul phone.
Patrols were delayed for a meeting of some kind with all the Wards requested to be present for it in costume, if possible, which probably meant a meeting or meet and greet of some kind with someone not already in the know about their identities. And she had a package to pick up. Which got her thinking, Taylor got digital notifications of waiting packages that didn't fit in her mailbox. And half the time she got them for things that did fit in her mailbox, if they were 'tracked'.
Why did Missy get a piece of paper in her mailbox instead when the handles had come in?
That bothered her enough that she sent Missy a message to ask what was up with that, forgetting about the impending whatever that was delaying patrols today in the process.
Missy apparently responded sometime before the repeaters were enabled for lunch at Arcadia, as that was when Taylor got her answer. Apparently there was an option you could toggle to get paper notifications instead of or in addition to digital ones. Missy had 'instead of' enabled to provide a difficult for the parents to refute excuse for visiting the PRT building a lot more than usual, to 'check if there were things to pick up'. Despite almost never getting packages,
apparently.
Yea, that was being left alone. It was not Taylor's job to deal with that, even if the information was nice to know.
On the school front, her latest history assignment was on an Endbringer attack. There were enough of them that every single person in the class had been assigned a specific one, by approximate date, rendering most forms of 'work together' and 'cheat off of someone else' null and void. Taylor had gotten November of 1999, which was both 'well known' from the point of view of many people knowing the absolute basics, and yet 'barely known' from the point of view of almost nobody knowing specifics at the same time. Hopefully she could find research material that went beyond six words, if they made it that far.
A library research run, probably tomorrow after school when Wards stuff was locked out anyway, was probably in the cards. Perhaps she could use the PRT database as a starting point, even if only to point her in directions she could direct her research? She couldn't use it as an actual source, after all.
Lunch itself was fairly boring, though Vicky kept giving Taylor odd looks. She never said anything, though, so Taylor put it out of her mind for now. It might be cape related anyway, and thus not able to be spoken about in public.
After school Taylor had dropped off her permission slip before going to get her package, which had turned out to be a heavily damaged box full of undamaged 'civilian' items. Some quick tests had shown that the gloves worked as well as she had been hoping, and didn't obviously have the plastic bits in them while worn. The new repeater watch needed some charging, but otherwise worked and looked great, which meant that she signed off on the delivery despite the damage to the box.
She finished packing everything away for later as the last of the other Wards arrived. Their mysterious appointment was still a little bit off, so Carlos decided to run a pre-patrol meeting. He and Chris were running an aerial route past the hospital downtown, Dennis and Brian were running through the Boardwalk, and Taylor and Missy
were being sent around the edge of the ABB's territory in the docks area.
Inference Engine indicated that today's pairings were most likely chosen to pair off those that could move in similar ways. Carlos and Chris as fliers, one due to powers and the other due to tech. Taylor and Vista as roof hoppers, both getting up and down as well as crossing gaps. Dennis and Brian currently being largely walkers,
neither having a documented trick to help them move around more easily.
The latter might be changing for Dennis, though. He had apparently given up on modifying his costume so the boots could be frozen independently of the rest of it. Instead he had gone shopping the day before to pick up "comfort inserts" for his costume boots, on his father's recommendation. Now he was practicing walking around a few feet off the ground with them. Which technically still left him as a walker, but one that could more easily move in three dimensions.
"So, have you figured anything out for your testing plans?" Dean asked, sitting down next to Taylor while they waited. "Not sure if there will be a good time this week to try them, granted."
"I think the feeding situation has been figured out," Taylor replied.
"But yea, finding time to actually test seems like a problem this week.
Unless you want to arrange to meet up in the testing gym tomorrow or Thursday?"
"Huh, Vicky said something about wanting to do some testing herself. Perhaps we can grab her and Amy and go see that whole setup tomorrow night? I have afternoon plans already."
"I'll check with my father, see if he has any objections, and if not see about a reservation."
Taylor got the impression that Dean really wanted to ask about the reservation bit, then again she didn't recall if the access keys class even mentioned that part. It also wouldn't surprise her to find out that
it wasn't mentioned to Wards, actually, out of a desire for their testing to be more supervised.
Still, all of that aside, Taylor fired a message off to her father, and then to Amy and Vicky as well to let them know of the potential plan.
Taylor would personally prefer that one of the other two be there just in case something went wrong. Well, she would prefer that Amy be there, Vicky was a not that close second choice right now. Maybe if Amy couldn't make it she should ask if Missy wanted to go instead?
The more general topic of discussion in the room was why they were there waiting. Inference Engine had decided that they were likely going to meet someone, and Taylor had agreed without telling Inference Engine that. Mainly because there were two familiar snarks in the building, or more accurately at this point heading down in their general direction. Well, technically three snarks, but Miss Militia was probably playing escort.
Taylor got up and slipped her jacket back on as the three parahumans reached the hallway outside of the Wards area. The others all took that as a hint and moved around to get ready, though Dennis apparently needed more walking down invisible stairs practice to avoid falling flat on his face. A moment after everyone was basically ready the visitors alert went off.
The actual workings of the locking system on the door had to be interesting, as supposedly something in it could tell when masks and costumes were on in the Wards area. If individuals were scrambling to mask up then the door would stay shut, but if they were ready as the group had been the door would pop open almost right away.
Right after the door opened Dinah stepped in, looking around in mild interest. She was dressed in a light blue skirt suit with weather symbols apparently randomly placed on it. Outside of that she wore a domino mask. It was a basic, but distinctive, costume, but Taylor was a bit confused.
So, any chance of telling me what is up with that costume?
[Data]
Ahhh, hiding the true scope of her powers. Clever. I'll play along, and see if I can get Lisa to as well.
[Gratitude]
Taylor popped that off to Inference Engine as a fully costumed Vivian followed, with Miss Militia bringing up the rear.
"Hello Wards," Miss Militia said, even as Inference Engine relayed Lisa's agreement to go along with Dinah's charade. "No, you don't have a new member today, but it is traditional to introduce you to new members of the Protectorate. Additionally, we happened to have a new affiliate cleared for your identities finishing up final paperwork today, so we brought them down to see you as well. As with New Wave, the decision of whether or not to reveal yourself is up to each of you."
"Yeah, ok, let's get this over with," Vivian interrupted. "I'm Countdown, as I hope you know. Yes, I know all of your cape names.
Yes, I read over all of your files, so I know your civilian names too,
but won't be spilling the beans. Well, except for miss annoying, who locked her file so I couldn't cheat, and I am still working on figuring out. I'm not defeated yet, by the way."
Taylor grinned at that, and acted like she was buffing her fingernails on her shirt. Vivian didn't seem to take that well, but did a good job of holding back her increased ire.
"At any rate, I won't be revealing my name to any of you right now,"
Vivian continued. "Nothing against you, but it is for some reason recommended not to reveal to Wards. Until I know why I'm going to stick with that. I have more important things to do than talk to a bunch of brats, so you have approximately zero picoseconds to ask me questions."
Huh, listening to a recommendation until she at least knew why. Had she learned something? Or did something just blow up in her face because she ignored some rule or regulation, and thus found out the hard way that they existed for a reason?
"Right," Miss Militia said, glaring at Vivian, who had decided she was done and was leaving. "As you have now met Countdown, I would like to introduce Weathergirl. Her thinker powers aren't that well suited to the Wards in general, so she and her family opted to go for affiliate status instead. Her contact information, as well as Countdown's, should be in your phones within the hour. Feel free to contact Weathergirl about the weather, though be aware that she can and will refuse if you get excessive or if a thinker headache has set in."
Taylor got curious and checked for Dinah's file in the PRT system. It was easily found by her cape name, and it was quickly apparent that the true scope of her power was not on record. Apparently Dinah or her parents had been crafty enough to skip out on full disclosure.
Now, technically Taylor was permitted to report anything about Dinah's power that she wanted, since she had met Dinah as 'Weathergirl'. For Dinah's sake, though, Taylor didn't really want to report much of anything.
"Thank you Maul," Dinah said as she reached Taylor. "For helping me when I needed it."
"No problem Weathergirl," Taylor replied, grinning. "At least this time it didn't result in another recruitment. I get yelled at enough for taking more than my fair share of those."
"They aren't sure if your apparent hospital recruitment should count towards your total," Miss Militia interjected. "Given that they agreed to join on the condition that they be sent somewhere you aren't. It's still being debated."
"I don't suppose you want to guess my chances of getting that recruitment?" Taylor asked, looking down at Dinah.
"Nah," Dinah said, sticking her tongue out. "Not my thing."
[Data]
Oh, good, less complaining is likely then. Thanks.
[Recommendation]
Wait, what? What did you see?
[Taunting]
Stupid snark, telling her to grab her first aid kit before going out on patrol. Stupid thing wouldn't tell her why, though. And since it did precog stuff she had no good reason not to listen to it. And the taunting was probably part of what it precogged for the best end result or something, so that couldn't even be held against it.
A few minutes later Miss Militia left with Dinah, so the Wards could get back to doing their thing. Taylor went and grabbed her first aid kit, and attempted to order a couple of PRT-issue kits. Instead she got redirected to a requisition form, which she filled out before going back out to the common area to start out on patrol.
Taylor and Missy were approaching the 'turnaround' point on their patrol, somewhat bored. While their return route wasn't exactly the same as their outgoing route it did parallel it somewhat. On the outbound trip they hadn't even spotted a single junkie, though quite a bit of noise-creating activities were going on. After the first fifteen minutes they had reverted to general chatter about random topics, in part to distract themselves from wanting to investigate every noise.
So far they had covered three different movies, a collection of various stunts they had seen online, previous incidents with the Wards from Missy's point of view, and had just moved into policies that had changed since Missy joined up.
"Did you know that they used to run regular tour groups through the Wards area?" Missy asked as they dropped down onto a lower roof.
"Two to three days during the week, and two to four tours on weekends."
"That sounds very annoying," Taylor admitted. "Did they want everyone there every time?"
"They wanted someone there each time, part of the reason I ended up so popular was ending up being that someone so often. Then somewhere in the country a villain took advantage of the tours to scope out the Wards area and they cancelled them as a security risk nationwide. Never did find out where, or how they caught those responsible. Now we do larger public appearances every summer instead, and only affiliates like New Wave or Weathergirl there get to see the internal areas."
Taylor snorted at that before jumping up to the next roof. Only to find that her aim was unintentionally off, as there was a hole in the roof for a now missing skylight right where she would have otherwise been landing. And by the time she noticed it was too late to adjust her jump harness to safely change her landing point. As such she fell right through the hole, landing in what looked to be an office at one point.
On the other hand, she missed a second hole, this one in the floor,
by several feet, so she hadn't gone straight to ground level.
"You ok down there?" Missy called from the skylight hole.
"I'm fine," Taylor responded, looking around the severely trashed room. Several of the windows were also missing at this point, so it was probably easier to just jump out of one of them. She was going to avoid the crumbling hole in one of the walls, just in case it decided to crumble more. "Need to learn to aim for the edge of the roof,
apparently, and I am flagging this building as a potential safety hazard to cross. Just give me a moment to hop out of one of the windows and get back up to you."
Taylor made her way over to one of the windows even as she flagged the building as a potential hazard on the map. She noted internal holes in floors and crumbling outside walls as the reason,
before looking around outside the window she had chosen. It looked clear, and the building opposite looked sturdy enough to bounce off of to get back up to roof level. Nodding to herself, she jumped out, hit the building across the alley, and rebounded up to the roof of the building she had just left.
"Nice job," Missy said, stepping up next to Taylor. "Not sure how you managed to hit the hole just right, but nice job anyway."
"Thanks," Taylor deadpanned, before suddenly spinning to look back the way they came. What the hell, why was the box moving snark poking at something out here? A moment later Missy had turned the same way, the gunshot that had gotten her attention having been quite loud.
"Vista to Console," Missy said, technically being their patrol leader today. "Reporting a fairly powerful sounding gunshot behind us, the likely effect area could impact our return route."
"Console to Vista," came back a few moments later. "Attempt to find a secure location to bunker down in while we evaluate the situation."
The two ended up bouncing up another level to the next rooftop, this building looking to be much more stable than the one they had been on, to wait for further direction. Neither of them wanted to test their chances against whatever it was that had fired that round. They positioned themselves behind what looked like an old elevator roof shack to wait. It did not take long for a snark to enter Taylor's range from that general direction, and she poked it to hopefully find something out.
Er, hello?
[Query]
Nope, neither of us carries any guns right now, let alone a sniper rifle.
[Acceptance. Query]
That does seem to describe us. Why?
[Apologies]
Taylor was paling even as she grabbed Missy and ran for the edge of the roof, startling Missy significantly in the process. At the same time she hit the 'broadcast all' button in her mental interface. "Maul to all points, Lung has mistaken us for the sniper that just tried to kill him and is in pursuit." A roar behind them punctuated that statement quite well for the two as Missy got into gear and compressed space significantly in front of them.
Can we try and shut him down like we did Vicky or Inference Engine?
Data
You won't know until we try. Well, I guess it is worth a shot.
Taylor switched back to Battle Escalation, and she wasn't sure how she knew that was the snark's name. She absently noted that her phone had gone into an emergency mode with active tracking of some kind, probably initiated by the console. She might want to research that later.
Sorry about this, but we kinda don't want to die and all.
[Confusion]
Establishing Additional Connections
[Annoyance]
Error: Additional Connections Refused
Taylor blinked, what? Can it do that?
Agreement. Data
Oh, well at least you already know how to do it too. That doesn't help us right now, though.
"I can't shut him down." Taylor said aloud, so Missy would know she had tried. "I was kinda hoping that would be a nice trick to at least get enough time to get away, too." A moment later Missy had crunched space to a rooftop far enough away from Lung for Taylor to lose connection to his snark.
"I don't think I can keep us ahead of him," Missy said a moment later.
"There are enough living things around here to cause me issues,
assuming we survive this I need to work on long-distance, narrow-
focus manipulations. I never noticed that my focus area seems to
widen over distance before now."
"That might just be not having time to focus properly, so you should try to do so distracted." And wasn't it weird that the two of them were discussing how to improve things for the next time running away was needed while being chased by a rage dragon.
Lung's snark returned to Taylor's range a moment later, moving faster than it had before. Which probably meant he had ramped up further. Taylor looked around and spotted a large chunk of metal. It gave her an idea, and she grabbed it on her way by, before jumping to the next rooftop with Missy. She just hoped Missy could pull off her part of the idea.
Kenta scowled as he chased the two females. He figured one of them had been the sniper while the other played spotter, and as such both their lives were forfeit. Even if they had missed and only hit his leg. Though he wasn't sure how they were moving so quickly.
Tonight was supposed to be a calm night. He had checked in with those he needed to and was preparing to head home when the shot had been fired. At this rate he was probably going to be tied up with this long enough to miss his daughter's bedtime. Again. He might have to send someone to get her one of those new Vista utility belts to make it up to her. Why she idolized the young Ward he wasn't sure, but her happiness was more important than his understanding in this case.
He was catching up to them again, his increased size helping, when the taller one threw something into the air. It wasn't a grenade, he knew that much. It looked metallic, perhaps it was part of the rifle?
Probably not important either way. If he ramped up a little more, or got a little closer, he might be able to figure out who the two were, so he could hunt them down even if they escaped him tonight. Taking another look up, he wondered why that thrown bit of metal seemed to be getting bigger.
Then it hit him.
Taylor and Missy paused to watch as the piece of metal knocked Lung right off of the roof he had been on. Both seemed to be stunned that it had worked.
"Nice aim," Missy finally said. "Good thing, too, I had enough trouble making it bigger in flight without worrying about where it was going to land."
The two then turned and started running again, looking to take an angle off to the side to start looping back towards the PRT building a little in the process. Because there was no way that took Lung out of the chase.
Ten minutes later they ran into their next major problem, when Taylor stumbled due to another snark appearing. This one, however, had appeared right behind her, so her stumbling actually caused the swipe of their knife to miss her, even though her wok would likely
have taken the hit instead. A moment later the snark was on a nearby rooftop, so it had to be Oni Lee. The dust from the clone disintegrating helped with that determination, of course.
Hey, what gives!
[Annoyance]
A moment later Lee was out of her range, cutting the conversation short. Until he was suddenly in front of them again.
Your human is the one that tried to knife me! You shouldn't be annoyed! That's my job right now.
[Elaboration]
Missy drastically expanded space even as Lee's snark vanished again. The grenade the clone had been holding exploded mostly harmlessly what looked like a couple blocks away instead of the couple of feet it had just been, before Missy let the space collapse again. Said space was then crunched further, so they could continue to move away from Lung.
"Can you at least shut Lee down?" Missy asked, just before jumping back from her crunched space due to Lee appearing in front of her.
The space expanded again, leaving the disintegrating clone a couple of blocks away.
"He is moving in and out of my range too quickly to try," Taylor admitted. "Oh, and Lung is apparently catching up again."
Missy crunched space, and the two made it through before Lee popped in again. Lung was still catching up fairly quickly, though,
and with Lee popping around it was harder for Missy to crunch space. All he had to do was drop in the middle of her intended path and she would be halted, after all.
"Do you have any insight into how to take either of them down?"
Missy asked, just before Taylor grabbed her and leapt to the side. A chunk of concrete barrelled through where they had just been standing. Taylor had luckily spotted Lung throwing it.
"If we're lucky Lee's snark will screw up his brain enough soon to off him," Taylor said as they landed. Missy had been too disoriented to crunch space for them, so they hadn't made it far. "I'm not holding out hope on it happening that quickly."
Lee appeared right next to them again, with two grenades out this time. Taylor kicked out and knocked the then-clone back just before Missy expanded the space between them. The grenades went off without harming them again, before the expanded space collapsed.
Taylor turned to see where their next rooftop should be, only to pause. Lung had stopped rushing at them for some reason, and Lee was next to him now. That was either a very good sign, or a very bad sign. She wasn't sure which yet. A moment later Lee had popped up to roof level, and then was in front of them.
"Lung offers you safe passage away if you answer some questions,"
Lee said, no grenades or knives in his hands.
Taylor looked at Missy, who was apparently just as shocked as she was. Taylor could be more discreet with the radio, so hit the console button. She absently noted that they were in a private 'emergency'
channel of some kind as well, which might explain the lack of other chatter.
"Maul to Console," Taylor subvocalized. Lee didn't seem to notice.
"Oni Lee has appeared before us, bringing an offer of safe passage if we answer Lung's questions."
The demon-masked man didn't seem to care either way, and merely waited. Lung appeared to have moved to a street where his likely still-larger form would be able to move more easily. Though now that Taylor focused on him a little, she thought she could tell that he was
shrinking. Or at least the center point of his snark was moving down towards the ground?
"Console to Maul," came back over the radio, the voice was different.
Did they get a dedicated person for the emergency? "Intelligence indicates that Lung will generally keep his word. As such,
recommendation is to answer his questions to the best of your ability.
Assault and Battery are on their way, eta ten minutes, but will not engage if Lung is non-hostile at arrival."
Missy looked at Taylor, who gestured to the edge of the roof where Lung was approaching from at street level. Missy nodded, then turned back to Lee. "Would Lung prefer to meet up here, or shall we drop to street level to talk there?"
Lee cocked his head to the side, apparently not expecting the question. After a moment he gestured to the same edge Taylor had,
so the two took that as an invitation to make their way down. Missy crunched space when they reached the edge of the roof, and the two gently stepped down to the street. Lee appeared nearby a moment later.
Lung was approaching, and was noticeably shrinking. Lee disappeared as Lung got closer, while Taylor and Missy got a lesson in Lung's powers. Namely, his clothing did not survive his ramping up. Also, he apparently had little to no modesty concerns on that front.
A moment later Lee reappeared, with a large bag. He quickly and efficiently pulled several poles from the bag, assembling them into a frame. That frame then had fabric attached to it, creating a little privacy area. The bag was then deposited into the area, which Lung stepped into. It took a couple of minutes before he stepped out again, with pants and his mask on. Lee efficiently dismantled things while Lung finished approaching the two Wards.
"Apologies for mistaking you for my attacker," Lung said, bowing. "I have now determined that neither of you has handled a gun this
day."
Missy looked at Taylor, obviously lost. Taylor shrugged.
"You said something about Lee," Lung continued. "I did not fully understand what it was you said, but you mentioned his brain. He has, diminished, and I wish to know why and if it can be fixed. Or at least halted."
You said something about having old snapshots?
[Agreement]
Taylor gave that some thought, and decided how to word this.
Because she wasn't about to recommend major brain work of any kind on her own. She would also be simplifying the issue quite a bit,
plus helping established villains without more information was probably a bad thing. "His, power, has been having issues. It builds him a new body each time it teleports him, and then dismantles the old one. But it makes mistakes, especially when building multiple new bodies in rapid succession, and doesn't know how to fix the errors in the brain."
Lung seemed to consider that. Or perhaps he was working his way through what she said, depending on if he had trouble understanding English as well as speaking it?
"Can he be healed?" Lung finally asked.
"I don't know yet," Taylor admitted. "The only way I know of that would let me find out is to work with Panacea to check. Even if she can't fix brains she can help determine what is and isn't possible."
Lung visibly slouched at that, then held out a hand. Lee deposited what looked like an appointment book in said hand, which Lung then consulted. He flipped through a couple of pages, then looked back up at the two Wards.
"You can obviously get a message to the PRT," Lung said. "Can you get one to New Wave as well?"
"I can," Taylor replied.
"Inform both that I seek a meeting. I will be at the rock on Saturday."
Lung apparently was done with them, as he handed the book back to Lee, who packed it away before teleporting away. Lung himself turned away from them and walked back the way he had come,
stopping at the corner a moment before a limo pulled up. He got into said limo, which Taylor could tell also contained Oni Lee, and then the two drove off.
Taylor and Missy stood there, a bit dumbfounded. Missy snapped out of it first, and hit her radio button. "Vista to Console, Lung and Oni Lee have departed peacefully." She dropped her hand and looked around. "Where did we end up, anyway?"
"Well off of your patrol route," Battery said, coming up behind them.
Assault was following her, and when Taylor looked it appeared he was sulking. "A van is already on the way to pick you up, and I think you two are being pulled from rotation for a couple of days."
"Running away from a rage dragon and a serial suicide bomber only gets us a couple of days?" Taylor said incredulously. "What kind of encounter gets us longer?"
"The two of you are, at worst, exhausted from running," Assault said.
"No injuries that we can see, anyway. If you want more time off, get hurt next time."
"So, is there a form I should fill out for Lung wanting a meeting at the rock?" Taylor asked, even as she queued up a message for Carol and Sarah. After a moment's thought, she added Amy, since it was her abilities that were likely to be discussed.
"Look for the form for a villain asking to meet in a neutral location,"
Battery said, shaking her head. "When you specify Brockton Bay you should find Somer's Rock as an option."
Taylor quickly found the form and filled it out, finding that there was even an option to indicate desired members or groups to also attend.
She filled in 'New Wave' there. She ensured that the message to Carol, Sarah, and Amy contained the same basic information, then submitted the form and sent the message off.
As the PRT van pulled up Taylor found herself thinking that it was probably a good thing that she wasn't going to be around on Saturday.
Last edited: Dec 16, 2017