How did one tell a dream from reality?
There were obvious signs, such as being placed in extraordinary circumstances or even a nagging sensation that it was not 'reality' that most people could identify. However, sometimes dreams could be almost indistinguishable from reality, case in point, it was what Taylor Abbott felt right now.
"Hey, you awake now?"
No, she wasn't. Taylor dreamt of mountain ranges that stretched beyond the horizon, of rivers that flowed freely, wildlife that ran free with the scars of calamity faded into the background. In reality, she saw these things regularly as well, though with a large difference of course, at certain points it was identical to the non-existent country of Cas-
"Wake up you lazy bum!"
Slowly fluttering her eyes open, the images of a homeland so far away, yet so close ceased to play in her mind. Instead, the sight she was greeted by was replaced by her homeroom, around five minutes before the next period began. It was in an older building, but not the run-down kind that she initially expected, sort of had that rustic, yet well-kept feel that was more common in movies from the 20s.
Yawning lazily, Taylor tugged the sleeves of her uniform while turning to her friend who woke her up from wonderland. Her blouse was kept tidy while Taylor's one was messier, with wrinkles and even some buttons left unbuttoned, she often butted heads with their homeroom teachers over uniform standards.
"Still had five minutes, Abby."
"You sleep enough, now, talk ."
Abby Kuo shoved her Dragonphone right in front of Taylor, her head still lazily resting on a desk. Groggily taking it, Taylor immediately recognized the thumbnail of the Paratube video on it.
"Yeesh, didn't think you were a groupie."
"I'm not-you didn't tell me this happened yesterday!"
Taylor fixed her hair while humming. "Yeah…was gonna tell you about it…"
The glare Abby gave did not help Taylor's case, but what was she supposed to say? Besides, it was fun for her to find out for herself. Taking another look at the video, she read out loud the most important part of it.
"2 million views? Huh, I'll probably have enough for that navigation set now…"
Ad Revenue was no joke, and with how expensive getting parts for her airframe was, it'd certainly get her up to full performance much quicker. Seriously, her base radar set was pre-Oceania War, probably two decades out of date by now. Technology marched on, but it didn't mean she had to be stuck eating the dust of those in front. Abby sighed, before sitting on her table, leaning in to make sure no one could hear them.
"Don't forget to factor in tax. Besides, don't you think she got a lot closer this time?"
Giving a flimsy wave to her, yes, there were certain points that Dragon got way too close for comfort, but the AOA limiter she somehow had managed to keep her on top. The Tinker was right about one thing, she was no longer that slow, and that meant Taylor had to maintain her advantage in manoeuvring for future encounters. If she was flying a regular airframe, then the G forces and strain would have grounded her for a while after that short 'dogfight' yesterday. Emphasis on the 'regular' airframe though, Taylor was nothing close to it.
"I'll be fiiiine. Why do you care so much anyway? What are you, my manager?"
"Sure I am, you have an interview at three tomorrow by the way."
Abby shot a grin at Taylor, who simply kept scrolling through the comments of her video. "Huh, a lotta Dragon fans are pissed in the comments." The dislike-to-like ratio was still in her favour though, a very nice 80:20 split.
"You antagonise one of the most popular Tinkers in the world and you expect to not get any flame for that? Thought you'd be smarter than this, and I don't need my Thinker power to tell you that."
In their city of Kelowna, British Columbia, Taylor and Abby were part of the few Parahumans that lived there. Something that often gets overshadowed by news from the big cities were towns that had their own Parahuman populations. It was estimated that their (relatively) small city only had around two dozen Parahumans, with around half being actual Capes. Part of the reason why cities tended to see more action was due to migrations, say someone in a small town triggered, then realised that there was nothing for them there. Their best bet was often moving to the nearest large city, their odds of 'making it' afterwards varied from place to place. A tale as old as Capes were at this point, Eidolon himself mentioned being from a small town in an interview years before.
Abby was part of the latter group of Parahumans, she had powers, yes, but they were not 'good' enough to pursue anything Cape-related, so she usually kept her power hidden. Easy to do for most Thinkers.
"Why don't you manage my account then? You know a lot more about it than I do."
"Your channel probably makes more in ten hours than I can do working for ten days. If all I need is to manage that one account…then hell yeah, let's make the cash flow!"
Ignoring the dollar-shaped signs in her eyes, Taylor kept scrolling through the comments, one, in particular, caught her attention.
"...they're calling me a villainous Rogue, the hell did I do?"
"You tangle with a hero and you immediately get labelled as one. Be happy they didn't call you a villain, or some heroes might begin taking potshots at you."
While she was that high up in the air? Sure. Looking at Abby, who was messaging three people at once, Taylor remembered something she wanted to say a while back.
"You know, you may not be a powerful Thinker, but you'd make a damn good AWACS."
"A…WACS? What's that?" Abby tilted her head at Taylor, her pitch-black hair covering an eye, a confused expression clear on her face.
"Nothing, just a future career path I guess…" Probably wasn't a good one anyway, the world's militaries still haven't recovered from the war, despite it being more than twenty years ago now.
"You say some funny things sometimes…sure it isn't your powers messing with you?"
She waved it off, the dreams were a side-effect, but it wasn't one that caused her a lot of concern. "They aren't, kinda pleasant most of the time."
They were pleasant most of the time until they weren't, and that was why she described those dreams as her 'World on Fire'. Just thinking about it made her uneasy, and the flashes of crimson that she saw in them even more so.
"Sounds like a Thinker thing, should probably add one more set to your ratings."
"Your Thinker power tell you that?" Before Abby could bite back, they heard the period bell ring, signalling their next period, an amazing two hours of maths with her least favourite teacher. Feeling a vibration in her own smartphone, Taylor took it out and read the message. Returning to Abby, she knew exactly what could 'make up' for not telling her about it.
"Hey…old man Zaitsev has the parts I ordered…"
A few days later, Taylor and Abby took the shorter school days on Friday to go and find Zaitsev, the latter particularly excited. She had only seen Taylor's power in action a few times, the first being when she 'accidentally' discovered her flying to school a year ago. That was embarrassing, and since then she had learned to take the bus to school instead, as agonisingly slow as it was.
Old man Zaitsev, a nickname that Taylor had heard from other mechanics who worked for him, was a former mechanic for the Soviet Air Force. He emigrated to Canada nearly a decade and a half ago now, primarily using his mechanic skills to service simple prop planes such as crop dusters for local farmers and whatnot.
It was a good, comfortable job, but there was something missing from doing it compared to the aircraft he used to service. That was actually how Taylor met him, she needed to service herself, and the local airfield was particularly enticing. She entered (broke) in, tried to find some tools, and Zaitsev, who was working a night shift, found her. The rest was history.
Getting through the gate, why a guard let two high-school girls in uniform into an airport was beyond her, but they probably saw each other enough to not question it. Walking in a beeline to Zaitsev's hangar, the airfield seemed to be on one of its quieter days, the winter did not need crop dusters or have many aviators fly in after all. It was no large airport, nor was the runway particularly big, the feeling was almost 'cosy' if she had to describe it. She remembered dreaming of an airfield in Magadan, part of Russia in this world, that looked very similar to this one, an F/D-14 about to leave a hangar and fight incoming mercenaries-
"There you are! Took you long enough!"
"Good afternoon to you too, old man."
A man in his 60s with dirty blue mechanic overalls stepped out from behind a twin-engine prop plane in a hangar, his hands wiping off excess greasing oil with a rag. Abby meanwhile, shot out from Taylor's unimpressed form and greeted him. "Hey there Mister Zaitsev!"
"Bah! Your friend has respect, unlike you…маленький отродчик…"
"Uhuh, and do you have a radar set for this 'brat', old man? Paid you a lot to get it for me."
"Of course! My contacts are solid, come here, best not to talk in the open." Gesturing for them to come closer, he hit a button on the wall that closed the hangar doors behind them. Despite the suspicious nature of closing the doors, it was probably for the best, as what Zaitsev smuggled in for Taylor wasn't exactly a 'legal' import by Canadian law.
Walking over to a large fenced section within the hangar, he opened the gate and went inside, moving a few boxes around until he got to a larger one buried underneath. "Come, see it before I do anything else."
Carefully tip-toeing around the different parts and half-empty boxes around her, Taylor leaned in next to the mechanic as he cut open the box, revealing something that she wasn't expecting. "What the…this isn't what we promised."
Seemingly expecting this answer, Zaitsev held up one hand towards her before explaining himself. "Yes…but trust me, this is much better. Do you know what this is? It's a second-generation Type 61A, practically unheard of outside China!"
Eyeing the airborne radar set carefully, it seemed to be in good condition…but what did he mean by-
"Still not sure? Chinese technology mass-produced? Subpar. But their specialised techs? I don't know what genius was responsible, but I can tell you that it is much better than the upgraded Zhuk set you wanted before."
"I still don't get it, what's so special bout' this thing? Seems like any common radar set to me."
"Simple, this was made by their Tinker R&D division, the communists, meaning that this is a derivative of Tinker-tech, hence why it is a second-generation model. New as well, only made in 1999." In a complete change to his usual grumpy self, his talking was now full of life, like he had regained something he had lost before. Still, pretty and enthusiastic words did not make for compelling reasons why her original order was changed.
"And…how is this better? I just wanted a stronger radar set-"
"It is better than your original set, and the one you wanted by far, trust me, it was hard enough to find one with my contacts, or even smuggle it from their airbase."
With how firm Zaitsev was, Taylor couldn't really find it in herself to fight him on that for long. A sigh later, she agreed to install it now, for Taylor had promised to show Abby something today, and that girl was stubborn in things she really wanted to see.
As Taylor and Zaitsev walked out of the fenced area, Abby looked at the two with an expectant grin, more so on her friend. "Finally done with your techno-crap? C'mon, I wanna see how Taylor does the 'thing', I've only heard her describe it before!"
The 'thing' referred to how she made repairs to her airframe, tweaked her engines and all the other stuff that came with being a so-called 'Jetgirl'. To be honest, that description was the best she could think of when describing her powers because it was quite literally what it was. Standing in front of a clear part of the hangar, she made sure that there was enough clearance to have the entire airframe parked there, lest she damage part of it during the release process.
Squaring her shoulders, Taylor fluttered her wings, and let go .
"Holy shit…"
"Ah, there it is!"
In a flash of bright orange light, an entire MG-29 appeared in the hangar in an instant. Immediately, Abby and Zaitsev began moving closer to it, both for different reasons.
"You…really weren't kidding about that whole 'Jetgirl' thing huh…" The minor Thinker began tracing her hands over the wings, eyes darting across the entire airframe as if she was trying to commit all of it to memory.
Meanwhile, Zaitsev was less awed, for he was inspecting it for… "You do all those crazy moves yesterday and your airframe still looks fine? Parahumans I swear…"
Taylor knew what he was getting at, if she did all of those moves on the daily with a regular aircraft, the moment she landed back at base the ground crew would have lynched her for it. It was a blessing in disguise, one she didn't quite understand at all but did not question.
"You saw the video?"
He grunted an affirmative. "One of the younger mechanics showed me, you are crazy for taking that Dragon head-on."
"You're not the first one to say that to me…"
Taking a break from 'feeling' all the airframe, Abby quipped at Taylor with a small grin. "Oh yeah? I bet your grandmother gave you an earful about it."
"Hrrk…" Choking on air, Taylor did remember Grandma Abbott pinching her ear last night…apparently, her video had made it on the local nightly news. Her excuse of 'but it was for the views!' did not resonate with her, none whatsoever.
"Anyways, how long is it gonna take, Zaitsev?"
Pausing to look at the nose of her plane, he hummed for a moment before responding. "Two, three hours if you help me. You're lucky I serviced with your model before, otherwise, you'd still be stuck on sub-par radar equipment."
Taylor snorted, she would have been fine without him, probably. "And I am soooo grateful for it. C'mon, I wanna try testing it before sunset if we can…"
AN:
And here we are, the AU scenario I put there. So why did I go with this and not Brockton Bay like every other fanfic in existence out there? One, Project Wingman is set on the West Coast of NA, much better to be there thematically and for story purposes. Two, I want to write a fic about the Canadian PRT, so expect to see a lot of Canadian heroes like Dragon and Narwhal down the line (also to fulfil my Canadian pride). Due to it being a location that isn't as developed as Brockton Bay, however, do expect OCs to fill in whenever needed.
Zaitsev and Abby are taken directly from Project Wingman characters, pretty easy to guess who they are.
Be civil in the comments below.