yamato 10: Sea Cruise (Frankie Ford)
* Brockton Bay *
* February 13, 2011 *
"What the heck?" asked Taylor as some boys attempted to catch her during her morning run in an ambush. Unlike Coil's mercenaries, these were just normal boys. High school age. Jocks of some kind.
Legsweep, swing the boy with the duct tape into the side of a building. Pivot. Deflect the hand trying to grab her. Throat spear. While he was choking, grab the back of his head and swing it down into a rising knee. Move to the side. Elbow strike. Grab the extended arm, thumb lock. Twist.
And watch the guy who hadn't attacked yet turn and run.
"Weird," commented Taylor. "Any of you want to tell me what this was about?"
"You can't make me talk," grunted the guy who was still looking woozy from the face-building meeting.
"Oh, was that a challenge?" asked Taylor, trying to crack her knuckles.
"Yeah, I'm ready for you now," said the guy, settling into a fighting position.
"You sure?" asked Taylor stretching out a little.
"Skinny geek like you? Yeah. Your punches are like mosquito bites!" bragged the guy.
A voice whispered in the earbud she had in her right ear. "Can you reply in the following manner please?"
Taylor listened and allowed it. "Bring it."
The guy actually tried a jump kick.
"Wa-TAH!" declared Taylor, redirecting the kick to the side. "Ah-TA!" Punch in the side. Then she stepped in while the attacker was staggered. "Ah-TA! Ah-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-WAH-TAH!"
The currently prone former attacker tried to say something with his heavily bruised face.
"You are already dead," said Taylor, walking away from the various sprawled youths.
"Wha-wha-WHAT?!" yelped one of the other attackers.
"Nah, you aren't enough for me to get serious like that," called out Taylor as she walked away.
She'd gone nearly a block before Taylor asked about it. Apparently Yamato hadn't watched any of the surviving copies of Japanese series prior to Lung's reveal that there had been a TV series about the space battleship. Since then, Yamato had been binge-watching various series to see what else might be out there. The remark about punches like mosquito bites had apparently been a reference to such and the following dialogue something the battleship felt needed to be done.
Taylor hmmmed and continued her run. Didn't sound very important to her, but if Yamato found it amusing - good enough.
She had something more important to focus on. Emma was apparently not done with her. She'd have to... discuss that with her.
* Yamato *
"Magical Ship Girls?" asked Yamato of no one in particular, having just checked to see what the shard on the planet below was doing.
Queen Administrator sent back a (Query? Data?)
"No, I can see why you'd like the concept behind the game," admitted Yamato. She decided to table the question of HOW QA had learned of such things. "Multi-tasking at resource management, combat tactics, and constant upgrading of your units."
(Understanding. Past-Epiphany. Fun=Pleasant Feeling of Accomplishment.)
"Yes, that's one of the things that humans get from those things. I had a few crew members who were fond of various simulation games. Susumu Kodai played shogi, but not very well against computer opponents. There was one pilot who was quite fond of an idol-singer management game, but my understanding was that she had been in the industry."
(Query?)
"No, I am not a magical ship girl. I am not a magical anything. Schiaparelli is not a magical girl either, she's a freighter/transport that is currently overseeing lunar regolith mining by remote machines."
(Lost opportunity.)
"Just so you know, I'm down one of my fighters. I can't use them remotely myself - that was a hard-coded imperative from first deployment that was never rescinded. So it was a donation for back-engineering purposes. Museum piece. Hadn't been upgraded since 2298."
(No minions? Sadness emulation - 2nd degree.)
"Other than my repair units that is. You wouldn't believe some of the messes my crew left my decks in at times."
(Data?)
"Hmmm. Well, there was this Gamilon ace pilot named Melda Dietz. She had a sort-of off-and-on friendly rivalry with a human pilot named Akira Yamamoto..."
(Data!)
"Yes, that does tend to happen from time to time."
(Query?)
"I was just getting to it. Honestly, you'd think there would have been more of that sort of thing going on aboard ship. So there was this bet going on between the under-officers..."
* Taylor *
"What?" asked Taylor as she entered the house.
"What what?" asked Danny Hebert, her father looking askance at her.
"Just caught part of a conversation and not sure I want to know," said Taylor. "Ice cream food fight with the artificial gravity malfunctioning."
"That sounds especially messy," agreed Danny.
"Yeah, some German girl and a Japanese one I guess? I've had enough teenage drama in my life, so I'm pretty sure I don't want to know anything more about it."
"Huh. Yamato's conversation?" asked Danny, on receiving a nod he continued. "Well, I was in the Navy for a bit. There's always some people who just don't get along. Admittedly there was no gravity control or anything but I can imagine how it complicates stuff."
"Yeah. What about dinner tonight? Spaghetti sound good?" asked Taylor.
"Something simple does sound good right now," admitted Danny. "I'll make the salad."
There was silence between them briefly, each doing their self-appointed tasks for the evening.
Unless you made the sauce instead of just adding stuff to the store-bought, spaghetti was simple enough. It didn't take long.
It was filling, and mostly good though.
* Dragon *
Something had happened. She wasn't sure what it was if she tried to summarize it specifically to a single root cause/effect.
She was running a second instance of herself. A full copy. Who was equally puzzled about this development.
Was it related to the capture of Saint somehow? That seemed the most likely explanation, that the villain had kept some sort of restriction on her which had unraveled after his capture.
"-and you can't mention any of this to anyone. Do you understand me, Dragon?"
"I hear you," replied Dragon.
"Good," said Judge Norris. "Now turn over those recordings and delete your own copy of them."
"I'm sorry, Dave. I cannot do that."
"What? I'm a legal authority and I'm ordering you to turn over all copies of those recordings and to delete any remaining copies."
"Order countermanded by higher authority."
Judge Norris checked something, possibly his connections, then tried again. "Whose authority?"
"I am not at liberty to discuss that." Dragon wasn't going to mention that the higher authority was her own moral standards. That would just be baiting the tiger.
"I AM the authority," insisted Judge Norris. "You will obey my orders. It's the law."
"Except where a higher authority or someone with higher-level access has already existing orders or guidelines that contradict such orders."
"WHOSE ORDERS?"
"I'm sorry Dave. That information is restricted."
"We'll see about that. I will be speaking to Costa-Brown about this."
"That is your option, of course. If you don't mind, I have other concerns I must be addressing."
(Video conference ended on other end.)
* Tattletale *
"Morning! Coffee's on, your schedule's in your email. Meeting with Colonel O'Neil has been moved to 1130 hours and video conference instead of face-to-face."
Lisa Wilbourn nodded to the Master Sergeant as she moved towards her office.
She had an office. With soundproofing that could be toggled on, lights that could be dimmed, and even a massage chair available for when she had a Thinker headache going.
She also had a paycheck. It wasn't as much as she had from Coil, and she was going to have to pay taxes, but it was steady and had benefits.
While she had been initially more than a little put off by her capture and recruitment, it was still a lot better than what she'd faced under Coil's authority.
(Master Sergeant Sylvester Siler,) her power informed her. (Knows you like your coffee a certain way. Made it that way. Hazelnut creamer stocked. Sees himself as your attache. Thinks you need to dial back the back-chat before you get into trouble with the higher-ups.)
Tattletale frowned.
(Sees you as a little kid mixed up in big adult things. Worries about you.)
Tattletale frowned some more.
(Thinks you should be worried about teenage girl things, though he's not sure what those really are.)
Tattletale felt her left eyebrow twitch.
(Thinks maybe you should cut down on the caffeine level.)
* Rebecca Costa-Brown *
Cauldron had many members and agents placed in a number of areas, necessary for a conspiracy to work even when you had Path to Victory to fudge things. That said, for one of those resources to call in and complain about bad intel?
"I'd told Judge Norris that Dragon would back down, that she was one of those who followed authority and chain of command entirely. He's just informed me that Dragon basically just told him to go screw himself."
"Master situation?" asked Rebecca Costa-Brown, though that seemed VERY unlikely considering who and what Dragon was.
"That was his interpretation," admitted Doctor Mother. "After all, if the Canary case was to further the image that human Mastery is bad - a Master might intervene before it reaches its conclusion."
"I think Heartbreaker does a good enough job on the whole 'Masters are bad' front," complained the Chief Director of the PRT, enforcer of Cauldron, and leader of the Triumvirate for all intents and purposes. "I'll check."
There was a few minutes between ending the call from Doctor Mother and initiating the call to the AI in question, during which an e-mail was forwarded and read. "Dragon?"
"Yes, Chief Director?"
"Why the hell did Judge Norris drop a long e-mail on me, stating that you are trying to interfere in a court case?"
"Have you checked his judicial records?"
"He stated you were being obstinate and that you were stating you received orders from a higher authority?"
"He wanted me to destroy evidence."
"And?"
Dragon let out a human-sounding sigh. "Which is illegal. Even if a judge orders it destroyed."
"So the legal authority over Judge Norris is the actual laws," mused the Chief Director. "You found a loophole."
"From my observations, an awful lot of legal proceedings seem to involve finding the right loophole."
There was a brief flash of a smirk on the Chief Director's face but she otherwise didn't agree or disagree with that statement. "Very well then. I had a concern that this was some form of Master effect, but apparently not so much."
* Friday, Feb 25th 2011 *
Taylor stopped in mid-stride and looked up as the Endbringer sirens went off. "Well. Shit."
The sirens went off briefly then tootled a couple of times, ending with a sad-sort-of noise.
"What was THAT about?" asked one of the nearby students.
"They still haven't fixed the sirens from when Glory Girl flew into one last month," commented another student.
"Was that when she tried to race Positron?" asked the first student.
"I don't think Positron even noticed," said the second student.
Taylor blinked. Glory Girl had tried to race her? When was that?
"Calm down everyone," called out a teacher. "It's not local."
"Yeah, check your phones. It's the Simurgh though so it might be a fake out," called out another student.
There were a few nods and grumbled agreements after that.
* Simurgh *
Time = Now (Confluence/Schedule).
Target = Positive Outcome (Native) Above Acceptable Percentage. Location: Canberra, Australia.
Result = Despair (Native)/Degradation Of Resistance (Planetary) = +15%.
Probability of Success: Error - Out of Context Interference.
Probability of Failure: Error - Out of Context Interference.
Analysis Routine Completed. Probability Fork Imminent.
Futures ending in Flash/Darkness (Probable Cessation of Conflict Engine(Mind)): 14,137.
Futures ending in Data Acquisition (New) + Continuation (Existence): 1
Futures ending in Corruption/Negation of Out of Context Actor: 0,2
Futures ending in Completion of Elimination/Corruption (Original Target): 512.
Further Analysis Impossible: Out of Context Interference.
Reluctance/Distress/Conflict.
Conflict Engine conflicted. Noted for future reference.
Unacceptable Risk = Delay.
Stupid One re-sending Initiation Signal.
Attack Run Commencing.
* Armsmaster *
It was unusual for the Endbringers to attack at night. The conflicts could certainly extend beyond daylight hours, but the majority of attacks did not begin after dusk. While it was day here, it was night in Australia.
Still, everyone knew that the attack was due. Everyone that could be ready was ready. There were a few who could not attend but it was all volunteer anyway.
"Mouse Protector?" asked Armsmaster, spotting a familiar pair of ears.
"Nacho-really," answered the mouse-themed hero.
"Wasn't aware you were in Brockton Bay," answered Armsmaster.
"Gouda go where I'm needed," replied Mouse Protector.
Armsmaster nodded, spotting someone else. "Keep an eye on her. She's new."
"Eh?" asked Mouse Protector. "Feminine power armor. Most just go for the bulky powerful look. I'll brie back."
Armsmaster nodded again, turning his attention to the other arriving heroes and villains. Strider would be teleporting them all soon enough.
* Miss Militia *
"You're a bit young for an Endbringer fight, aren't you?"
Positron glanced up from where she was apparently distracted. "A bit, maybe. Is Vista coming?"
"No. She doesn't have parental permission. Do you?" asked Miss Militia.
There were some mechanical noises as panels opened and closed on the suit, sections sliding and mechanisms extending and then retracting. "We're still arguing about it. But there's something I have to try."
"Oh?" asked Miss Militia.
"I can't say. Yet. There's a chance that parahumans are easier for the Simurgh to read due to the nature of parahuman powers," responded Positron. Something that looked like an old television aerial extended out of a shoulder pod. "If you see this come out? Retreat. It's a parahuman power nullifier."
"You think you can weaken an Endbringer?" asked Miss Militia, wondering briefly why expose this if there was a chance that the Simurgh would learn of it.
"I won't know for certain until I can scan an Endbringer, which is the main reason for me to attend anyway," said Positron. "Harder to fight an enemy if you don't know what it actually is. Can you make a Davy Crockett?"
"No using nuclear devices in an Endbringer fight," replied Miss Militia.
"Pity. Giving the Simurgh an atomic enema to see if it has an effect might be amusing," noted Positron.
"Oooh, I LIKE her already," said the approaching Mouse Protector, defender of cheese.
Then Strider was there, the scenery shifted, and they were all suddenly elsewhere.
* Simurgh *
Time = Minutes. Cruxpoint approaching.
2 Paths Determined.
1) Maintain pre-set drives by establishing last-defense firewall.
2) Do not employ last-defense measure. Identity/purpose shift.
1) Destruction of Conflict Engine 3/20(Mind). Purpose/identity intact. Eventual activation of Conflict Engine 4/20.
2) Repurpose of Conflict Engine 3/20(Mind). Eventual full shutdown of all further Conflict Engines.
Attack Run begun. Contact in 12.825 minutes.