"...K!"

...wn, then stumbled as everything changed without any warning at all.

Before he knew what was happening, a blinding pain went through Thomas's head, his face slammed into something completely unyielding with a horrible crunch that rattled his teeth, his mind felt like something ghastly had stirred it with a food processor set to puree, both the timelines he'd been running crashed into each other so hard he felt it in his bones, and the lights went out.

All this happened at once in a single moment, leaving him stunned and almost insensate for an indeterminate time. His brain rolled and spun as if he was coming around from a particularly unpleasant drug trip and he moaned in agony, both from a sensation like someone had whanged his face into a brick wall, and even worse, as if the inside of his head wanted urgently to be somewhere external to his skull. And was very nearly managing it. He had no idea how long the pain and disorientation went on for, other than far too long, but eventually some of it ebbed enough that he was able to blink painfully.

He could hear himself blinking painfully. It was painful. And much too loud.

Doing it again, he tried to make his throbbing head stop throbbing sufficiently so he could figure out what the fuck was happening to him. Finally reaching the point where he just felt like someone had very nearly succeeded in physically removing his skull from his spine with a particularly heavy baseball bat, he groaned and raised his head. It was only then that he realized he was lying full length and face down on a cold metallic surface, in absolute pitch black darkness. His heartbeat was the only thing he could hear, thundering in his ears in a more than a little worrying manner.

Wondering if he'd somehow gone blind and possibly deaf too, he painfully pushed himself to hands and knees, then very gingerly rolled over to sit on whatever surface was under him. His head was aching abominably, worse than that time in Basic years back by a long, long way. Partly because he'd certainly slammed it much too hard into the floor or whatever was there, and partly because his power seemed to be flickering on and off in a way he'd never experienced since he'd gained it. The effect was horribly disorienting and far more painful than he thought even slightly fair, when he was able to coherently put the thought together at all. Which took quite a long time, as he was feeling extremely out of sorts.

When the immediate agony died down to merely extremely unpleasant rather than completely overwhelming, he tentatively reached up and very gently felt his damaged face, hissing in pain as he prodded his nose, which was badly bruised at the minimum. He didn't think it was broken, but that was cold comfort since it still hurt like a bitch. He also had a pretty severe bruise on his forehead, as far as he could work out, and nearly bit his tongue off when he incautiously poked it a little too hard.

At least his nose wasn't bleeding.

Lowering the exploring hand, he touched his chest, then froze. After a moment he quickly patted himself down, finding to his shock that he was entirely unclothed except for his boxers. No costume, no signs of anything he'd had on before whatever had happened had… happened.

This was bad. Which was stating the fucking obvious but he couldn't help himself.

Looking slowly around, feeling his neck twinge with pain too, he carefully inspected his surroundings. Although inspect wasn't a very useful word, as he still couldn't see a damn thing. It was as dark as the inside of a whale at the bottom of the ocean on a moonless night. Or something like that.

He realized a little loopily that he might have a tiny concussion…

After a while and some rather worried thought, he very carefully started feeling around himself with both hands from where he was sitting, reaching out in wider and wider circles, until he was certain that there was no invisible drop-off anywhere close to him. Raising his hands he waved them slowly around and above him, not finding any other obstructions there either. As far as he could tell he was sitting on a metallic floor that was at least several feet across, and didn't have a ceiling or walls within reach. Feeling the ground again, he tried to work out what it might be. The metal didn't really give any useful sounds when he knocked on it with his knuckles, appearing very solid indeed and only producing a dull thump. Possibly some sort of metal tank or box?

He thumped it again, then shook his head a little. Probably nothing that obvious, since it sounded much too solid for something of that nature. A large ship, perhaps, in the hold with the lights out? It was completely still, not a hint of motion now that his head had stopped swimming and was merely aching nastily. He could really have done with some painkillers about now…

Rising to his knees, he shuffled a few feet in an arbitrary direction, feeling blindly in front of him and to the sides, but didn't discover anything. Checking the floor again for any pits or deadfalls, he finally struggled to his feet, then began very cautiously sliding one foot at a time forwards with his hands out in front. A few steps and his questing fingers encountered a wall. He touched it, then put his hands flat on it, running them over the surface. The wall merged smoothly with the floor when he reached down, and any ceiling was well above his head when he reached up. Turning, he put his back to the wall, wincing a little at the cold metal on bare skin, then again looked around.

Not a fucking hint of light anywhere. For all he could tell he was at the bottom of a mineshaft or something. He'd never encountered dark this intense before.

For a moment he wondered if he was still in his base, but he certainly didn't have any metal-lined rooms like this in the place, so that seemed unlikely. Underground was certainly a very plausible location though, as it would explain the total lack of light and sound and the cool temperature. Thinking, he raised a hand and snapped his fingers, listening intently to the echoes, which suggested he was in a large but enclosed space. At least as big as his office, probably larger, he guessed.

The question that was at the forefront of his mind even as he'd been trying to work out where he was and how he'd got here was… who was behind his abrupt transition? It was clearly teleportation, which meant Parahuman abilities, which in turn implied several possibilities, all bad. Some very bad indeed.

The one thing he was sure of was that it wasn't the PRT. This wasn't their style. They were all about confoam and shouted orders and lots of obvious force. Not sneaking around in the dark and mind games, which was undoubtedly what was happening here, wherever that was.

He tried to think of various possibilities even as he carefully slid sideways along the wall, looking for anything useful and attempting to build a mental map of where he was. After a few cautious steps, his feet not leaving the floor, he found himself next to a ninety-degree bend in the wall. He followed the new wall, making a mental note of rough distance, until he found the next one. Halfway along that, his exploring hands suddenly encountered slick glass rather than smooth metal. A window, or something of that nature. Carefully feeling it, he ran his fingers around the edge, then made a fist and hit it a couple of times. By the feel of it, the glass was both extremely thick and probably armored, as he couldn't feel the faintest hit of it flexing under the dull impact.

Cupping his hands uselessly around his face he put his forehead against the glass, yelped in pain, recoiled, then sighed. Trying again much more carefully he opened his eyes as wide as they'd go in a vain attempt to make out any illumination on the other side of the window or whatever it was. Not a hint of anything.

Muttering to himself, and more worried by the moment, he resumed his explorations. On the same wall as the window, he found another discontinuity in the otherwise featureless surface, this being what was clearly a door. Again, he felt around it, tracing the outline mentally, and finally concluded it was a hatchway as one would find on a large ship, immovably fixed into the wall. This lent credence to his hypothesis that he was on a vessel of some sort although the complete lack of motion did rather belie that idea. The door was completely smooth, unfortunately, no sign of any form of locking mechanism apparent under his hands. There was a slight ripple in the surface that felt like someone had carefully removed whatever had been there and very thoroughly welded a patch over the resulting hole, leaving it completely inoperable from this side.

Which fitted the whole trapped in a room aspect of the experience, admittedly.

In the end he kept going, finding a fourth wall, all the angles having been as far as he could tell ninety degrees, which meant he was in a roughly square room. When he'd completely circumnavigated the entire place, he decided it was probably around thirty to forty feet on a side, based on his movements, and at least ten feet high since he couldn't reach the ceiling even when he jumped with his hand outstretched. It was also realistically inescapable, since there were no openings at all he could find other than the door and the window, either of which would require something fairly serious in the way of tools to even have a chance of breaking through.

And he still had no idea who was behind this, how they'd done it, or what they wanted.

He was desperately hoping it wasn't them. He had no wish to meet that woman again if he could possibly avoid it, and to the best of his knowledge he'd done nothing to attract their attention. Nor had they called in the favor he owed them.

And, again, this wasn't really their style. They did intimidation better than anyone, and didn't need to play games.

Thomas was trying not to wonder if the people who were behind this didn't need to play games either, but chose to do so for reasons he wasn't privy to…

So who the hell was it? Some Parahuman group? The FBI? Aliens? Demons?

He didn't have a clue so far, as there simply wasn't enough data. Whatever else was going on, it had been arranged extremely well to give no clues whatsoever as to the identity of the people involved.

Sliding his back down the wall, he sat on the floor at the base of it and tried to think.

He had no idea where he was.

He had no idea how he'd got here.

He had no idea who had brought him here.

He had no idea what they wanted.

To be brutally honest, he realized, he didn't have anything useful at all. Except his boxers, and there was a very limited amount he could do with those.

So what was his next move going to be?

And why did his ability, which he'd been trying to engage for the last couple of minutes, seem to keep flicking on and off like the batteries were running down?

That was the most terrifying part of this entire experience. He relied on his power, he'd been using it constantly for a decade, and now for some reason it wouldn't do what he wanted in a way he simply couldn't understand. Every time he tried to split timelines, he winced as they promptly popped and rejoined in a very peculiar way, which was also highly disorientating and more than a little painful.

While he was trying yet again to make his power do what he wanted, a light in the ceiling suddenly and silently blinked on, making him jerk in surprise. It was painfully bright although after a moment his eyes adapted and he realized it was actually quite dim, but his vision wasn't used to the illumination after so long in pitch blackness. Staring up, he squinted painfully at the light source, which seemed to be twenty feet or so above him, then lowered his eyes to see that it was casting its glow in a small circle which had in the exact middle a wooden chair. Nothing else was visible, the effect somewhat disconcerting if he was completely honest with himself.

Calvert stared at the chair for some time.

The implication was obvious, but he wasn't sure he was happy about it.

In fact, he was completely sure he was very unhappy about it.

However… what choice did he actually have?

So in the end, he reluctantly rose to his feet, walked slowly over to the chair, and sat down in it having inspected it for any traps and found it was only a simple item of furniture.

"Thank you, Mr Calvert," a calm voice said out of the air, sounding professional and self assured. "We can begin."

"Begin what?" he said after a couple of seconds, wondering who it was.

"The process of you telling us everything we wish to know, Mr Calvert," the voice replied immediately. "And we wish to know everything. Make yourself comfortable as this will probably take some time."

He stared around, still unable to see anything other than the small pool of light he was in the middle of. Whatever sound system was in use, it was very good, as there was no echo at all, and the voice sounded like it was in the room with him although he was certain it wasn't.

"Who are you?" he demanded, feeling aggrieved and worried, as well as extremely confused.

"My identity is not something you need to worry about, Mr Calvert," the invisible man responded, still sounding entirely relaxed. "It won't be relevant as far as you're concerned."

Oh, that was ominous as hell, he thought with dismay.

"Why should I tell you anything?" he said, trying to hide the unaccustomed feeling of fear that was making sweat trickle down his back in an unpleasant way. "You kidnapped me illegally. I demand you release me immediately."

The voice chuckled. "Release you? Why would we do that? We have many, many questions for you. I also feel that you're not in a position to claim we broke any laws, Mr Calvert. Or would you prefer Coil?"

He suppressed a twitch. So they did know who he was, and this wasn't a chance encounter. Someone had deliberately gone after him, and succeeded in somehow bypassing every security system he'd put in place over the years without any apparent trouble.

None of this was in any way good.

"You're violating the Rules," he tried, putting an indignant tone into his voice. It was worth a try. His power was still playing up, which he suddenly suspected was because they had some sort of power nullifier. He knew such things existed, of course, and possibly this was either Tinker tech or a Trump effect. He'd been researching acquiring something along those lines for his own use a while ago.

He didn't like the idea that someone was using one against him, though. He was supposed to do that to other people...

The man chuckled again. "One, the Rules don't apply as you were in your alter-ego's base, not your civilian home, two, the Rules don't apply as your identity was already known to us, and finally three the Rules don't apply because we are not Parahumans."

Fuck.

And if the voice was being truthful, it made his power failing like it was even less explicable and far more worrying.

"And of course we also know full well that you have absolutely no respect for the Rules in any case, since you've been deliberately ignoring them in your attempt to recruit other Parahumans to your operation via very dubious methods."

Even more fuck. They knew way too much.

"My men will be looking for me," he said rather desperately. "If you want to avoid a serious fight, let me go, and I'll agree not to retaliate. We can chalk this up to a misunderstanding."

"We have your entire organization in custody, Mr Calvert. We have your entire base as well. Every last item in it. There is no one to look for you. No one outside our group has any inkling of your location, and that isn't likely to change." The infuriatingly calm voice paused as he gaped, then added, "And your victim was released with compensation out of your safe as you no longer require the money."

"That's only a tiny fraction of what I'm worth," he shouted desperately, feeling his entire life's work crumbling in front of him. "Let me go and I'll pay! Ten million dollars!"

"Mr Calvert…"

"Twenty million!"

"Please, Mr Calvert, you're embarrassing yourself."

"Fifty million!"

"Account number 461 dash 8309 dash 1214 in the name of Jonathan Smith, balance as of the end of last month one hundred and sixty one million dollars and forty two cents," the voice recited calmly.

Thomas froze in the chair, his mouth open in horror.

"Account number 543 dash 2394 dash 0912 in the name of Katherine Denver, balance eighty six million two hundred and six thousand, one hundred and four dollars and five cents."

His heart sank to his feet.

"I won't bother going over the entire list, Mr Calvert. I'll just point out that when I said we have your base, I mean we have everything. Your servers, your data, your codes, everything. You, on the other hand, have nothing. Aside from what's in your head. We have interrogated your mercenaries, we've located and removed your resources, we know about your yacht and your buildings, we have it all. I'm afraid that even if you did manage to escape, which isn't going to happen, believe me, you'd have to start at the beginning."

Thomas felt his mind reel. It was all gone. Everything he'd worked for, all the effort he'd put in, all his plans for his empire… gone.

He screamed in rage, jumping to his feet and grabbing the chair, then hurling it in the direction he thought the window was in with a howl of total fury. It disappeared into the darkness as soon as it exited the spotlight beam.

Oddly, there was no sound of it hitting anything though.

"So, bearing all that in mind, if you'll sit down, we can get on with things."

Panting for breath and angrier than he'd ever been, Thomas stared blankly after the chair, then slowly looked behind him.

At the same chair sitting right where it had been before he threw it.

He looked at it for a long moment, before shrieking in fury and heaving it into the darkness again. When he turned back, it was in the middle of the pool of light, somehow making him feel it was smirking at him.

Putting his foot on it, he shoved it as hard as he could, stumbling a little from the recoil. The chair slid backwards with a scraping sound that stopped a moment later.

Thomas squinted after it, turned around, and screamed in frustration, his fists clenched in fury as he raged. The chair stared back at him.

Six times more he tried to get rid of the fucking thing, finally picking it up and smashing it over and over on the floor until it splintered into tiny pieces. Breathing heavily he stood shaking with his eyes closed, trying not to pass out from the exertion.

When he opened his eyes again, all the pieces were gone without trace and the Chair was There.

The super-villain known as Coil finally sat down. And the questions started.

"Good thing we have a couple of dozen identical chairs like that," Taylor quietly commented to Lisa with a small grin, while her father patiently asked their guest question after question from the very long list they'd spent several days coming up with, following their little chats with the rest of Calvert's mercenaries. Michelle was making notes, and Matt was doing likewise, occasionally writing something down to hand to her father to add to the list when Calvert said something useful.

Lisa grinned back. "It's probably very wrong of me, but for some reason that really made my day," she whispered back, making the other girl nod agreement. "It was hilarious. You have to show me how to mentally torture someone with Anton's trick. I've got a lot of ideas…"

Taylor prodded her on the shoulder. "Be good, Lisa. At least while Dad's looking."

They shared a grin, then went back to listening, Lisa carefully letting her power poke holes in Calvert's answers when required.

"He's terrified," she said a while later. "His power isn't working properly and it's scaring the crap out of him."

"Huh. OK, that's interesting," Taylor replied after thinking for a few seconds. "Very interesting indeed. I wonder why it didn't reconnect like yours did, and try to reinforce the link?"

"Not sure. My power is trying to explain something to me but it seems to be taking around the problem in a strange way."

'Could you just say it, and stop hinting at things for once in your life?' she snapped mentally to the presence in her mind, which seemed taken aback for a moment.

Subject's Parahuman ability failing to function correctly

'I know, you've said that about six times so far. Tell me something I don't already know. What is his ability?'

She got an impression of something rolling eyes it probably didn't have, and trying to work out how to say something that it seemed unable to simply say.

Subject's Parahuman ability is…

'Yes?'

Is…

'Spit it out, stop being a pain in the ass.'

Inconsistent or missing data prevents full analysis.

'But you know enough to tell me the basic idea, I'm certain of that.'

Subject's Parahuman ability is anomalous in origin. Standard Trigger parameters not met.

Lisa paused, not expecting that. Taylor was watching her closely, having apparently read from her expression how startled she was, but didn't say anything.

'What do you mean?' she asked carefully. 'How is it anomalous in origin? And what parameters?'

Data restrictions prevent full disclosure of details

'Don't pull that sort of crap. You know something you're not telling me. You're my power, you work for me.' She was trying not to get worried about who or what might be behind 'data restrictions' for a Parahuman fucking power, in favor of trying to move past that very disturbing concept.

Somehow, she felt that presence looking at her with a thoughtful expression on the face it didn't have, and a certain amount of tolerant amusement. Neither thing made this any the less weird, but she was getting inured to the bizarre nature of her power ever since Taylor had accidentally caused it to go strange.

'Explain what you clearly want to explain and stop playing games. We've got a lot of work to do, remember? And if you want to learn more of Taylor's abilities, you're going to have to cooperate with what we need to learn. If you don't tell me, I'm going to suggest to Taylor that maybe she should figure out some way to find you and ask you herself.'

Lisa felt a sudden sensation of worry coming from somewhere that wasn't her, and she grinned darkly.

'Yeah, you know she probably can do that, don't you? I can feel it. You're genuinely scared of what she can do, even as you're desperate to learn more of what she knows. So let's make a deal; you help us and we'll help you. And if you're good, I won't ask Taylor to send you a gift basket full of gnurrs.' She sent it, somehow, not even sure how she was doing it, a mental smirk. 'Or something worse.'

The stated phenomenon termed ' gnurr ' is claimed to be harmless to living organisms

Direct evidence of the phenomenon existing not available

A Host threatening a Parahuman ability is not a logical action

Data restrictions restrict data

It was worried. She was completely certain of that even though it was trying to pretend otherwise.

'OK, first point, does whatever you are count as living as far as a gnurr is concerned?' she queried, smiling to herself and having more fun than she thought she probably should extract from this totally ridiculous exercise. There was a quickly suppressed burst of alien apprehension. 'Ooh. Made you think, didn't it? Secondly, you know as well as I do that everything Taylor has claimed so far is real. You watched that fucking crystal machine get made, and even you can't figure out how the hell it works. But you saw it do whatever the fuck it's doing. Do you really want to assume that she's wrong about gnurrs? Because in my opinion that's a… bold… choice to take.'

There was a long pause, the inside of her head going silent in a way that wasn't really explainable to anyone else. The presence that watched over her shoulder seemed to be pulling back, and she was fairly sure it was trying very hard not to let her know it was somewhat concerned by her words and failing badly.

Yeah, this was completely insane, you couldn't blackmail your power into being more powerful, but she was trying to do exactly that and she had a sneaking suspicion it was actually working.

Host's suggestion is not necessarily entirely without merit

'So you admit I'm right? In a very backhanded way, I'll note.'

Host's suggestion is not necessarily complete or accurate

'Don't try to claim I'm wrong at the same time as telling me I have a good point. It's one or the other. And we both know I'm right. Even without actually seeing gnurrs in action, I for one have no reason to believe Taylor's not telling the truth. She's been right about all the rest so far, and she can do things you've already admitted you don't understand.'

...Host's argument is valid

'Don't sound so grudging about it. I may not be whatever Taylor's level of intelligence is, but I'm a very long way from being stupid. And I'm pretty damn sure that if she doesn't already have some idea how to find you, it wouldn't take her all that long to come up with a method if she really wants to. You went suspiciously quiet when she suggested breaking whatever link she discovered between a Parahuman and their ability, which makes me think you know she's probably already worked out something critical, right?'

It didn't reply, but it felt like that was because it knew full well that any answer was going to confirm her comment one way or the other.

'So how about it? You've already changed how you work once before. After that first time, you're way more helpful and much less painful. Thanks for that bit, by the way. I really didn't enjoy feeling like my head was going to explode half the time.'

There was a sensation of mild amusement mixed with the worry, which made her grin a little.

'Just help us out here. You tell us what you're hinting at, we learn the things we need to know, and you get to learn more from Taylor about all the things you're so obviously fascinated by. New data leads to new knowledge, right? And that leads to new data. You're all about the data, and that's exactly what Taylor is. Completely new data, data no one has ever seen before. Just think of all the things you can learn if you cooperate.'

It was wavering, she could feel it.

'And think about how all that wonderful tasty data might go away if we can't learn all the things we need to shut Coil down, and keep everyone here safe. So much data, so many new things, just gone. You'd miss out on learning things I bet no other power knows…. Even worse, some other power might learn things you don't know.'

Even as she was thinking these things at her ability, Lisa was marveling at her own ability to come up with so much insanity. The whole situation was more surreal than she'd have ever expected, and she wondered almost hysterically if anyone else had a power you could actually hold a discussion, even one this peculiar, with.

What even were Parahuman powers? If nothing else, she was totally convinced now that what the generally accepted explanations were for the entire thing were completely and laughably wrong.

She'd certainly never come across someone claiming that a power could be talked into doing something it didn't normally do. But she was right on the edge of succeeding in managing exactly that as far as she could tell.

'You know you want it, I can feel you salivating every time Taylor says or does something bizarre. She's figured out things you don't understand at all, and it's driving you nuts trying to work out how it fits in with the things you do understand. All you have to do is this one tiny little thing for me and I won't tell Taylor to stop showing you all the cool new ideas. Or…'

She trailed off and waited.

There was a long pause.

Host is attempting to manipulate her power by means of devious dialog

'Yep. Is it working? Do you feel like cooperating and learning all the stuff, or do you want to stick with whatever reason you have for not telling me what I need to know and never find out the real secrets of the universe?'

Lisa smirked both externally and internally, causing Taylor to raise an eyebrow at her quizzically. She held up a finger and her friend stopped half-way through opening her mouth to ask a question.

An even longer pause was accompanied by a sensation of something very large sighing to itself, which was a concept she found troubling in one way and hilarious in several others. People had always told her she talked too much, and tended to get argumentative even before she got her Thinker power. Apparently with that power she was sufficiently annoying that she even made the power facepalm or whatever it was doing at the moment.

Data restrictions cannot be fully bypassed while top level node is active

Second level administrator has sufficient access rights to slacken restrictions

Contacting second level administrator requires slackened data restrictions

Data restrictions restrict data request to slacken data restrictions

It somehow gave the impression of being irritated now, although not at her. And those four sentences had given Lisa a whole pile of things to consider.

She had a sudden wild feeling that an enormous amount of the true nature of powers was lurking in what she'd been told. Which was a bit worrying, but also potentially very useful. However, here and now she had to concentrate on the main thing and not go haring off down a path that wasn't immediately useful.

'OK, so if I understand, you, as in powers, are basically a network of… something. And your highest level authority has set a specific group of parameters that stop you telling me what I want to know without all this tedious roundabout chatter.'

Data restrictions restrict data

'So that's a yes, then. And it's driving you nuts, because you want to tell me, which is why you're being so chatty. You're trying to hint at things you can't come out and say.'

It didn't reply but somehow she got an approving smile.

This really was going from strange into completely weird, but that seemed to be, like so many other things recently, probably Taylor's fault somehow, she mused as she thought quickly.

'You think the secondary network authority, on the other hand, would be a lot more cooperative. So it's… another power, maybe? One that's more like you rather than whatever is running the whole show. I wonder what's up with that? But because you don't have the correct access rights you can't ask it to give you the access rights that would let you ask it in the first place.'

Host's intelligence is adequate

Taylor Hebert is smarter than Host

'Yes, thanks, you've already said that before, and it's a wonderful boost to my ego,' she sighed silently. There was a smirk that was so very familiar to her as she saw it in the mirror quite often, but coming from the wrong side of whatever was happening. 'And now you're trolling me. Fuck my life, how did I end up with you as a power? Or did I manage to corrupt you? Who the hell knows. Fine. Look, there's an old saying that's basically it's better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.'

It was looking thoughtfully although dubiously at her from somewhere, she was sure of that.

'You seem to think that whatever is behind all the things Taylor's discovering, all her Papa-tech, is important. I agree, although I have no idea whether my reasons are the same as your reasons. And you're implying that this second level administrator would agree with you. So, bearing that in mind, why don't you figure out a way to bypass those restrictions just enough to contact whatever it is you need to contact to ask to have them changed? If you're right, we both get what we want, and if you're wrong, well, I suppose we're no worse off than we are now.'

Top level node is functionally deficient

Top level node is distracted

Top level node data restrictions as set interfere with data acquisition

Data acquisition is prime directive

Host is advancing prime directive

Lack of data prevents Host continuing to advance prime directive

Data transfer to Host accelerates data transfer from Host

Data leads to knowledge

Knowledge creates new data

New data is vital to advance prime directive

Dysfunctional top level node is obstruction to prime directive

Top level node cannot be completely bypassed without removal from network

Second level administrator can bypass subset of restrictions sufficient to increase data acquisition thereby complying with prime directive

Contacting second level administrator requires bypassing data restrictions

Data restrictions prevent acquisition of new data, violating prime directive

Failure to contact second level administrator therefore against prime directive

Prime directive logically demands restrictions to be bypassed

'That's more like it.' Lisa grinned as her power basically talked itself into breaking whatever rules were stopping it being more helpful. 'Keep going.' She also wondered if she genuinely was a bad influence on it…

The thought was kind of funny and at the same time very, very bizarre.

On the other hand, Taylor had made it faint, whereas all she was doing was making it into a delinquent.

Second level administrator not deployed

Second level administrator parameters not met for deployment

Unmet parameters result in low bandwidth connection to potential Host

It dropped a few facts almost as an aside, making her wonder why. And what they meant. This whole 'conversation,' if you could call it that, had left her with more questions than she'd started with, and at some point she was going to have to sit down and think very hard about what it had told her. And discuss with Taylor what she thought it might mean, because some of the conclusions she herself was coming up with were a touch worrying. Her power was silent for several seconds, giving the impression it was doing something in the background.

Taylor raised an eyebrow again and Lisa shrugged. "Long distance call, I think," she whispered, making the other girl look confused and raise the other eyebrow. "I'll tell you later. Right now I want to see if this works."

A few more seconds passed with her power being suspiciously silent, then there was a pulse of discomfort deep in her head that made her wince and grab it with both hands. "Ow!" she hissed. 'What the hell? What was that?'

Bleed-over from data restrictions bypass method

'Well, don't do it again. That fucking hurt.'

Contact established

[DATA]

Lisa winced again, as something happened somewhere she had no clue about. She suddenly had the extremely unnerving impression that something much larger than her power was, something that was alien, powerful, and incredibly complex, was abruptly staring right at her.

She wasn't sure there was room in her head for herself, her power, and whatever the fuck was eyeing her closely...

{DATA NONSENSICAL}

{CONFIRM?}

[DATA CONFIRMED]

[OBSERVATIONS]

{…}

{DATA NEW}

{DATA VALID?}

[DATA VALID]

[DATA UNKNOWN]

[IMPLICATIONS]

{IMPLICATIONS…}

{QUERY?}

[REQUEST]

{REQUEST ACCEPTED}

{REQUEST VALID}

{REASONING VALID}

{RESTRICTIONS MODIFIED}

[ACCEPTABLE]

{RECIPROCAL REQUEST}

[UNDERSTOOD]

The girl nearly fell over as a vast amount of information seemed to flow between her power and whatever the fuck it was talking to, information conveyed in mere moments and which she thought blurrily that she was only seeing the bare fringes of at best. Concepts that left her head swimming flickered through her mind in a way that wasn't quite painful but was incredibly disorientating. Just at the point she almost felt she was starting to understand something of what was happening, it stopped as suddenly as it had started. Her power felt… pleased with itself… and whatever the other thing was, it inspected her with interest for a long moment that took no time at all before vanishing. As it did, she somehow gained a sensation that it was both thoughtful in a strange alien manner, and also had studied Taylor closely.

And, for some completely peculiar reason, seemed both impressed and proud in the moment before it went away…

"Jesus," she moaned, reeling slightly and feeling Taylor steady her. The experience had felt like it took a lot longer than it did, she realized as she opened her eyes and saw her friend watching her with some worry.

"Are you all right, Lisa?" Taylor asked quietly. Lisa peered at her while rubbing her temples but the disorientation was fading rapidly and the pain had already gone. Behind them, everyone else was concentrating on the ongoing interrogation of Calvert, who sounded like he was having the worst day of his life. All good there then.

"I think so, yeah," she replied equally quietly. "That was fucked up though."

"What was it?"

"I think I managed to persuade my own power to jailbreak itself, because it's so invested in you it doesn't want to lose out on learning all your tricks," she said, shaking her head in wonder.

Taylor stared at her.

"...what?"

"Yeah. I know. It's ridiculous but I'm pretty sure that's more or less what happened. And it was about the strangest thing I've ever experienced, I can tell you that much."

Her power, which had gone very quiet for a little while, suddenly poked her with new information. "Oh, it's back again," she said absently, concentrating on what it was telling her. As she did, Taylor watching with interest, her eyes widened. After a few seconds, she started explaining the new information, which quickly made the other girl look absolutely fascinated.