Thursday, April 7th, 2011
Brockton Bay, Downtown Police Department
Point of View: Pemmy "Multiversal Emulator"
You hate to admit it, but of all your extended family, Simone tends to have the best understanding of the world around her, at least, writ large. It's been a while since she's used that knowledge to intentionally needle someone, which you suppose lends itself well to her getting along with everyone else, but you know the information is still there.
And if there's anyone who can help you chart a course of action, it's probably her.
'How's the body?' You send to Demmy as you head back out into the streets, waving goodbye to Danny, Jess, and the kids as you go.
'Pretty much done. Just need to 'hook it up',' she responds quickly.
'Wonderful! I— that is, I think you should-' you express hesitantly, having to force the words through the link, and being incredibly thankful that it exists because you suspect that you'd never be able to speak the words otherwise.
'You should be the one to stay,' your sister cuts you off adamantly.
Your slowly growing smile falls immediately into a thin-lipped grimace.
'Wouldn't it be better if it was you?' You rebut. The city's streets blur past you as you run, pausing occasionally to examine new bits of visible damage to buildings or streets that are even now in the process of being rapidly fixed.
Ages ago, when you first came to be as you are now, you suspect the city might not have even bothered to repair the damage, inevitable as it was that it would simply be remade within the week. Now though, despite the simmering sensation of looming danger, the people of Brockton Bay are seemingly much more unwilling to just yield to such inconveniences. As resilient as the people of this city became under the constant threat of the gangs, that same determination to continue onward has manifested completely differently now that a taste of something better has been presented to them.
You look around you at the people marching through the streets, going to work, to school, and to play.
These are people who are determined to get back their prosperity, unbowed by potential danger— and it shows.
'Why? So that she can have a temper?' Demmy brushes you off.
'I see no issue with being determined,' you chide her. The self-deprecating tone she is using to refer to herself is somewhat strange once you realize that you are literally talking to one half of yourself.
Describing yourself as being 'two people at once' for most of this emulation would be accurate, but also a misrepresentation of what's actually going on here. You aren't a hive mind with a shared central node or the ability to instantly pass information or feelings back and forth between your two bodies. Rather, your conscious mind has been roughly split in half and divided up between your two selves, and then modified by the overall personality of Popola and Devola.
She is you, but she is also your sister. Your family, in the truest sense, maybe even more so than the original Popola and Devola in some ways.
And this splitting of your consciousness has presented you with an opportunity and a solution to a problem all at once.
You've long since understood that it pains Taylor to see you 'go' when an Emulation is complete. Now, without a guiding consciousness for your back end, you can resolve the issue. One of you two sisters is intended to become the animus that provides your new body with consciousness, creating, in a sense, a daughter that will always be with Taylor. The other… will return to ensure your crystalline back end continues to run smoothly.
In both cases, you aren't really describing what could be considered a continuation of consciousness.
This emulation will end. That is a certainty.
But… elements of who you are now will certainly filter through into your chosen destination. And it's obvious which of those two destinations both of you would prefer.
You have become, as your avatar would have once put it, quite nauseatingly human, after all.
'And I see no issue with being calm,' Demmy says with some aggravation.
'We… could ask Taylor which she prefers?' You say without much heart in it.
A snort is all that comes back down the line in response to that.
'Aren't I the mean one? What a needlessly harsh way to hurt her,' Demmy retorts, saying about what you had been thinking the whole time.
'We'll consider it in more detail later, then?' You finally grumble, sliding to a stop well before reaching your destination to stare in bafflement at a sight you had never expected to see.
'Why—' Demmy asks then pauses, perhaps perceiving your confusion over the mental link.
"Trollo thinks the time has come to show you idiots that crime is dumb!" Trollo calls angrily up to what looks like a mundane apartment building.
"Foodfight- gah! You've got me speaking in the third person you nitwit! Look, you guys are fucking it up for the rest of us! Tone it back or fuck off!" An overweight man in a red and yellow speckled white onesie with a tank of swirling colors on his back demands.
"Trollo has a bit, it's not his fault he's so legit!" The stoney man calls back to his compatriot.
"Why… why, did I decide to work with you guys again?" An otherwise mundane man in a rumpled suit wearing a domino mask asks tiredly, clearly doing his best not to stand too close to his other two compatriots.
"Cus we know how the new game is played! Yeah, we're baby's first villains, but the white hats love that shit! We're safe targets to throw their baby brats at, and since they only stop us some of the time, we actually make out okay! Stick with us new guy, you'll be a part of the Terrible Trio in no time!" Foodfight sneers at him.
"It isn't a trio without me! And I never agreed to that name! I'm not going to be some Saturday morning scrub like you idiots! Killing is just bad for business!!!" The suited man scowls.
You observe the group blankly for a moment before turning to eye the building they're standing in front of.
"Of course killin's bad for business! That's why we called a truce!" Trollo breaks character exasperatedly to explain, which seems to throw the new guy off slightly.
"Didn't the PRT never respond to your request? I mean, some normal thugs acting up isn't exactly— hey wait! Why did you send the request? You aren't the leader!"
"Yes I—"
You ignore the rest of the brewing argument in favor of jumping up to look inside the tenement building, where you are once more surprised by two figures as they emerge from what seems like a hole sheared through reality onto the fifth-floor landing as you arrive at it.
They're both clearly very new capes, given that their 'costumes' are loose collections of stray tactical gear topped by what looks like a pair of panda masks— one spray-painted white and the other black.
"Ready?" The black-masked one calls out confidently.
"Y-yeah," the white-masked one says, jumping from foot to foot agitatedly.
"Hey, relax, we got this," Black Mask says, lightly shoving his compatriot in jest.
"I'm not bulletproof, asshole!" White Mask complains.
"Really? You should try it!" Black Mask chortles before bulldozing through the metal door leading to the fifth floor.
"Wachow!" He shrieks joyously as he goes, even as bullets start to blink off of him.
"Oh fuck me," White Mask groans before vanishing in a burst of speed after his companion.
You blink at that, then, slowly, follow after them as they proceed forward. You only have so much time to dedicate to your evening but it'd be a shame for two new heroes to get hurt in your presence.
Not that they seem to need much help. The men on this floor seem entirely mundane save for one who has a tinkertech weapon that turns out to be just as harmless to Black Mask as normal bullets seem to be. The three villains are still arguing outside by the time the two heroes clean everyone up, and you are curious to observe as they hurriedly fist bump each other after the fight.
Mostly because it doesn't seem to be entirely for childish reasons.
""Skadoosh,"" they call as they fist bump and when their hands separate, that same black shear in reality reforms in front of them.
They then quickly start tossing the criminals through it.
"This isn't like… inhumane right?" White asks Black hesitantly as they work.
"Nah, we'll dump 'em at the police station later," he replies with a shrug.
"Couldn't we just send them straight there?"
"Yeah, but then they won't be ready for it— someone could get hurt,"
"Truuuue."
Huh. Responsible.
You'll have to make a note to have your Master seek these two out at some point.
Curiosity and responsibility both satisfied, you leave, traveling the rest of the way to the police station with only minor inconvenience, as you are forced to stop at least one ill-thought-out corner store robbery in passing along the way.
When you finally reach your destination, you make a point of becoming visible and physical outside the building before walking in like any other person would.
You find a beleaguered-looking man with a coffee halfway to his mouth staring blankly at you from the front desk, amidst a sea of normal people pacing, sitting, and otherwise just being jittery in the waiting area at the front of the building.
"I was told Simone was here?" You say with as cordial a tone of voice as you can manage, given the awkward stare the officer is leveling at you.
Seeming to register his coffee, still frozen halfway to his lips, he slowly lowers it before answering.
"Yeah… you're uh, you're the projection right?" He asks almost despite himself, caught somewhere between fascination and distress.
You allow one corner of your mouth to twitch up in amusement at the question.
"Yes, I'm… 'the projection'," you say airily, before pressing the point. "So, Simone?"
"I'll, uh, buzz the detective for her. Hey, if you don't mind me asking," the cop says conspiratorially, leaning forward over his desk in what you suspect is a vain attempt at secrecy in a room surrounded by people who are clearly eavesdropping.
You notice that he definitely still hasn't actually buzzed anyone, but humor him regardless.
"Is uh, is it true that big floating-city thing is gonna be a prison?" He asks nervously.
You tilt your head to the side in confusion at that, completely thrown off by the question. Why would anyone even think that? Was that what people were saying about the school your Master had pain painstakingly taken the time to build? That it was some kind of… Bird Cage 2.0? What a horrendous rumor.
"No. It's intended to be a school," you say bluntly.
Now it's the officer's turn to be confused as he leans away from you.
"...To teach what?" He asks incredulously.
"...Heroism and Magic?" You offer, realizing how absurd that must sound to the people of this world but refusing to back down on the topic of something your Master is so passionate about.
There is a pregnant pause between you and the man for a second before he slowly reaches once more for his coffee.
"...I got a kid in high school right now," he probes you, once more twisting your expectations to the side with an idle comment.
"I- I will ask about future scholarships for the children of the city's protectors?" You half ask, now flustered and on the back foot.
You aren't even sure if your Master planned on charging admittance to the place, truth be told.
"Nice. Gimme a sec," he says, before ponderously reaching over to grab at a landline on his desk, and dialing an extension.
"Jimenez, your tagalong's, friend's, superpower is here to pick her up," he drawls amusedly into the phone.
You… really can't tell if this man is being offensive or not, and you don't get the chance to find out because maybe two minutes after he makes the call, Simone exits the station and quickly power walks over to you, with a tired-looking plainclothes detective trudging along behind her.
"Emmy," Simone says, affecting a cool, professional demeanor despite also immediately walking up to check you over for any injuries.
"Hi! I came to see how you were doing. We just got back…" you trail off, as Simone nods at your comment, but pointedly uses her hands to spin you around and push you one step at a time back out of the police station.
The detective following behind her chases after you but that's kind of an afterthought compared to how Simone herself is acting.
"Wonderful, I'll make sure to report back to Mom later tonight, why don't we get some fresh air—" she says quickly, her perfunctory tone of voice at odds with her shoving.
"I don't understand—" you trail off as you finally end up pushed out the front door, only for Simone to hurriedly pull a tag from the inner pocket of the light coat she's wearing and tear it in half, creating a short-lived Gap in front of the station that she likewise pushes you through.
When you emerge on the other side, you are in her 'office', and her sudden expression of distress is thrown into sharp relief by the neon glow of the bar.
"Are you okay!? Is Mom okay?! Why didn't you tell anyone what was going on!?" She hisses, drawing you into a tight hug that would probably have caused you serious bodily harm if you weren't well above normal human durability.
"It was an unplanned detour," you admit, stretching your hands out to hug her back.
"But!" You say abruptly, pushing her away and trying your best not to feel bad about the tears of relief beading in the corners of her eyes. "Why were you acting like that at the station?" You ask curiously.
"That— I— Well with Mom gone I knew things would get bad, and it's my city now too, so I went to help them but they didn't really know who I was so I… used Mom's name to say she sent me as a specialist on weird stuff? Like, a consultant? I don't charge them much or anything! I just wanted to help!" The white-haired woman before you says, oddly flustered by the entire ordeal.
"That still doesn't explain…" you trail off.
"I just wanted to look professional in front of my coworkers! I'm not like that dunce you were a few weeks ago!" She snaps, leaning away from your touch to gesture at the delicate red bow and dress shirt she is wearing. It… would look fairly professional, coupled with the pencil skirt and stockings she is wearing… except she is also wearing leather gloves and sneakers.
The dichotomy is quite jarring, not that you feel the need to point that out to her.
"Ooh… so you didn't want your auntie to embarrass you in front of your friends?" You tease, leaning around the uncomfortable-looking girl long enough to lock eyes with the Detective, who chose to follow you through the Gap Simone created to get away from prying eyes.
He shoots you a somewhat nonplussed look before his eyes dart to Simone, who, observing your actions, whirls around on him in a panic.
"...Damn it," she mutters, her already pale skin growing even paler in consternation.
"...I can promise I won't tell the rest of our 'friends' about this. Also… Mom?" The officer puts forward, heedless of how embarrassed Simone visibly is at the moment.
"I could just eat the memories, you know," Simone pouts.
"I believe that would count as assaulting an officer, Miss Hebert," the man drawls, eyeing Simone speculatively.
"Completely fearless," Simone groans in annoyance before clicking her tongue and turning away from the man with her face tinted slightly red in embarrassment.
"Emmy this is Detective Alejandro Jimenez. He was assigned to me to—" Simone begins, taking a seat at her desk and visibly trying to master herself.
It's actually kind of cute how she doesn't know what to do with herself when she has people around who aren't her family who she actually has to work at making like her.
"—Actually, she was assigned to me. The higher-ups are pretty resistant to a weird shit division. Think it's a PRT problem. I can't say I'm all that interested, myself, but when the most recent PRT manuals have chapters on ghosts…" The officer trails off.
Simone glares at the man and he just shrugs, moving around until he is seated on a stool by the ice cream bar.
Almost instantly, the Heap starts conjuring an ice cream float for him, which it deposits pointedly in his lap instead of on the counter in front of him. He just barely manages to stop it from toppling over on him, and the resultant fumbling seems to ease some of Simone's nerves because she snorts a laugh at the sight.
"Whatever. Anyway, the point is, besides Mom, I've done the most research on this kind of thing. The brats can handle the obvious stuff, and the big lug can appease the PRT, but I'm more suited for… intellectual pursuits," she says with a smirk.
"I suppose the fact that evil ghosts should be perfectly okay for you to eat has nothing to do with it," you say dryly to her.
She gets the flustered look again, darting a glance at Jimenez who just raises an eyebrow in her general direction before taking a bite of his float. Then he pauses to glance down at it in surprise, before rapidly proceeding to take another bite.
"I can help so I'm helping!" Simone insists.
"For a fee," Jimenez notes.
"Work should be paid for!" She fires back.
"You two get along well," you note dryly, drawing them both up short.
"He's smarter than he looks," Simone says, pointedly looking away from you.
"She's nicer than she acts," Jimenez says at the same time, choosing to focus on his ice cream instead of looking you in the eye.
"Do I need to tell your Mom—" you tease only for both Simone and Jimenez to make disgusted faces at you.
"Absolutely not!"
"I'm married!"
You snicker at the shared response, before settling down and diving into why you actually wanted to check on Simone in the first place.
"Sure, sure. So, can you tell me anything about the situation out there? I got the general run down from Danny, but…"
"Knowing stuff is my whole 'thing', yeah," Simone agrees easily, taking on a thoughtful expression.
"Well… you would have heard about all the slightly-superpowered criminals wrecking stuff in the area already right?" She offers at first, pausing to consider her words carefully.
You nod, and she continues.
"Well… as much as I suspect most of them do come from Bastard Son…"
"Pending investigation," Jimenez interjects under his breath, which earns him a glare from Simone before she continues.
"...Some of them definitely aren't from him. They don't seem to be Parahumans, either. If I had to describe it, I'd say that a small but statistically notable number of criminals in the city are almost haunted by powers. It's…" Simone trails off in her explanation.
"Fascinating,"
"Sucks,"
She and Jimenez speak at the same time.
Then they glare at each other again.
"Is it just you? Isn't that… too much?" You ask her with some concern.
"She's just a consultant. Gonna help me put together our own manual on things. You know, for the guys on the ground who don't have access to all that tinker stuff," Jimenez offers politely.
Simone snorts but the detective doesn't offer a rebuttal.
"So you're helping him to form a new… ghost… police… division?" You ask slowly.
Simone offers you a casual shrug and a smug grin that makes you perfectly aware that Simone is likely to have a lot more to do with things than even the police department actually wants.
"I guess I should let your Mom know you're throwing her weight around then?" You decide to tease her.
Simone glances at Jimenez who just rolls his eyes at her before looking back to you.
"...Please," she requests.
You restrain a snicker at the demureness with which she makes the request. If nothing else, Simone seems to be doing much better at restraining her foreknowledge of people when interacting with them you suppose. It makes you happy to watch her developing normal friendships with people, undistressed by all that burdened her prior.
You can't be certain, but you think your prior emulation would be proud of her, in his own obnoxious way.
"Well, I'll make sure to tell Parian she has nothing to worry about if he sees the Detective around then," you tell her, relishing the slight widening of her eyes at your implication despite not having been particularly subtle about the direction her interests lay in.
Then — because you take a perverse glee in being able to get the last word — you vanish, making your way home so that you can be there when your Master awakens.
You can feel your sister making the same decision, and meet her part way home as you travel.
Most of what you have to teach with this emulation, on a practical level, is complete. You were forced to cram quite a lot of it into your Master while she was otherwise indisposed, and you wouldn't choose to do it again no matter how quick it was, but, what's done is done.
So you don't expect there to be a lot more early mornings with your Master and your sister in the garage to train.
You do have one more torment— ah, ability, to heap upon your Master before you go however, and you plan to relish what little time you have left with her using it.