Note: More midterms are coming up, so updates are slowing. Also, starting this chapter, I'm going by my headcanon a bit, just because a lot of details are missing for the Project Moon games. Also, some things might be written differently than canon PM. I have no idea how I would balance T Corp time usage otherwise. Otherwise, this is mainly an info chapter. Next chapter should be the power testing visit. After that will probably be the big thing to happen in Teth.

-The Light of Brockton Bay-

It's dark and rainy outside. People who haven't been in sped up time wouldn't know, but it's beautiful to see the raindrops at quarter speed. You can see each individual raindrop when they're that slow. It reminds me of the cascading droplets that get stuck to windows.

Most day's I spend my time as a normal Class 3 Collection Staff for T Corp, but it's not always the case. The technicians that use T Corp's singularity don't get a lot of work, especially at my level. I mainly work on the big stuff, entire complexes using the TT2 and TT4 protocols. I even worked on some of the previous L Corp buildings before it suddenly imploded on itself.

The problem with being a technician is the inability to find proper work. People rarely could afford TT2 protocol for their buildings, and once they got it, they would very rarely need upkeep other than extra time. That's why I'm out tonight; by night I'm a Class 3 Collection Staff, by day... I'm still a Class 3 Collection Staff! But every once in a while I am a well-respected T Corp technician!

And technicians are given a level of trust by T Corp. I know the full details of how to create machines that utilise the TT1, TT2, TT3, and TT4 protocols. I have no idea why T Corp is most well known for TT2 when everyone inside District 20 uses TT1. TT1 consists of the basic temporal speed up or slow down that most District 20 residents use. Whenever someone uses their extra time to speed themselves up, that's TT1. When I swing my pickaxe at someone and harvest their time, that's also TT1.

TT2 is the most well-known protocol outside of District 20. The ability to speed up, slow down, stop, and even reverse time in buildings. The reverse time part is the main thing that differentiates it from TT1. TT1 doesn't remember the previous states of what it's affecting, TT2 does, and therefor can reverse time back to said point.

TT4 is much in the same boat. It creates a zone that stabilizes time within it, returning everyone to their regular speeds. Useful for social gatherings and security checkpoints where they want everyone to be going at the same speed.

The real big secret that I know, however, is TT3. TT3 is not well known and kept as a secret by T Corp. T Corp had feared giving out TT2 to other people, so they had developed the TT3 protocol as a countermeasure. TT4 was actually developed straight from TT3, as TT3 acts as a more mobile and stronger version of TT4. It can come in either generator form or an explosive form. Both act as an anchor for time within a certain area around it. Time cannot be reversed, sped up, slowed down, or changed in any way. The generator made it a constant field, but even as a secret trump card, it was deemed too resource intensive. The explosives can vary, but give somewhere between 10 minutes to a day of standard time in an area. The way TT2 works, if the explosion even knicks the TT2 area, it's down for the duration of the explosion.

I actually like it here in T Corp. I have a successful job, it's much safer than other parts of the city, and T Corp gives me respect. That's why when I do tax work, I'm glad to be doing it. Today I'm going after some kid with unregistered inventions. Any inventions must be registered, or you'll be fined and the inventions confiscated.

I've tracked the kid to a nearby alley he's known to frequent. Probably has friends that live nearby. I turn around the corner to find him and a group of 2 other people. Upon seeing me at the end of the alley, he stops what he is doing and breaks out into a full sprint in the other directions. His friends scramble in a similar way, but I'm not here for them. Turning my time to 4 times speed, I spend approximately 2 minutes of the time I'm given as a collection staff. Overall, a pretty efficient use.

He's a little younger than me and looks terrified for his life. I don't know why he's so scared; he has a minimum of 4 hours per day. It isn't like he's going to die. I give him a small smirk and taunt him in a mocking voice. "Shouldn't have played with unauthorized toys, kid."

I slam the pickaxe I'm wielding into him, but instead of impaling him, it instead sits just half an inch away from his skin. The boy freezes in place as various things on the pickaxe begin to move and vials are slowly filled. His time is slowly being harvested. He's racked up nearly 200 hours of fines, so the pickaxe takes a while.

When the pickaxe is finally done extracting his time, I take it off of him and give a mock salute as I walk off. Another successful tax collection. Now to find the next criminal on my list.

-The Light of Brockton Bay-

- Taylor's POV

I wake up with a massive headache. I'm starting to think all my identities are coming from the same or similar places. I didn't think too much about the memories of Seven Association, but if it is, I can't ignore it if I have multiple sets of memories from The City. Now that I'm thinking about it, holy shit is that place a terrible place to live. I thought things might be bad here, but it is way worse there.

Combing through my new memories, I start to pick out a few things. Now that I've already had one previous set of memories dumped on me, I notice a few things I thought wrong. Seven Association's memories mostly came immediately, but specific memories slowly started to trickle back. I knew interrogation techniques when I woke up, but it wasn't until later that I knew that identity was a grade 6 fixer. I never thought about it because the change was gradual, but the new sudden set of memories has reminded me.

The memories themselves were something that surprised me. I knew how to make tinkertech items. Pickaxes that could drain time, watches that could use stored time to have more time, and TT2 protocol technology to reverse time in buildings. The weirdest part is that it doesn't feel like tinkertech. Anyone with the right materials and tools could make this stuff. Which brings me to a realization. 'Are there no parahumans in The City?'

In both sets of memories, there is no information on trigger events or powers that come from crises. Except maybe whatever distortions are; I don't have much info on what those are. In a place like the city, I feel like parahumans would be very prevalent, and yet they aren't. This T Corp technology isn't locked to a single person either. Does this mean that everything in the city is pure technology? Then how do my powers play into this?

Honestly, random powers that come from a crisis sounds like a singularity that a corporation would be based on in The City. But there aren't any corporations in The City that sound remotely like that. Although, for all I know, there could be a corporation in the city that does have that as a singularity. No one knows what A Corp's singularity is, so it could be them.

I should probably get downstairs for breakfast. I get dressed in my clothes for the day and head downstairs. Dad is already up; he's just having cereal today, so he hasn't made anything for me. I go to make myself a bowl as he quickly finishes his. Dad gets up and hurriedly gets his stuff for work and gives me a hug. "Sorry I can't talk; I woke up a little late, and if I don't leave now, I'll be late." Dad says before rushing out the door, leaving me alone.

I finish making my bowl of cereal and sit down to eat. I guess I've always picked names for my power. What should I name the most recent one? T Corp Class 3 Collection staff? Nah, too long, and it also doesn't fit with the job they had. What about T Corp Technician? I think that one's good. It's short and understandable. Now the question is what gear I'll have to start with. I'm fairly confident I can build a lot with my knowledge, but starting out with stuff is nice.

Finishing my bowl of cereal, I head to the bathroom. I equip my T Corp Technician identity and am surprised by my look. For some reason I have the Sepia palette. I'm not even in T Corp right now! Don't tell me I'm stuck with a sepia palette. Luckily, the difference is small, because everything about me was already pretty close to sepia. I pick up a nearby blue brush; it doesn't change to a sepia palette.

Man, if I were a class 2, I would have lived in the backstreets of District 20, and I would be monochrome right now instead. Monochrome person with time powers, no thank you; I've already got one identity close to an S9 member.

My appearance is pretty similar to what I wore in District 20: nice suit, top hat, monocle, On my back is my currently compressed armour waiting to be activated. Actually, it's more attached to my back; it's container is lining my low back to the back of my head, and the container itself is a compressed space that's bigger on the inside. It's wearable under the suit, and when it expands, it replaces what's inside with the suit. Usually the process is sped up using extra time, so the process looks like it happens in a split second.

I trigger the mechanism to put on the armour. The process is slower than I'm used to, being that I have no extra time. It takes a good few seconds instead of the normal 0.2 seconds. Finally, when the armour is completely equipped, my pickaxe extends in one hand and my personal hand mounted chainsaw appears in the other. My hands are completely incased in metal, and most of my body has plates of wood and metal for protection. A lot of clockwork and gears can be seen inside of various parts of my equipment.

I also have my TT1 watch with me, which gives me an idea. I'm able to borrow time from myself. I won't need much, so I set my watch to make me have half as much time as normal. I sit on the couch and wait about 30 minutes standard time. I now have 15 minutes of standard time saved up. I just need one final test before using my T Corp gear. I switch out of my T Corp Technician identity.

I realise now that I've been referring to myself as if I were a T Corp employee. Have I been slowly becoming more in tune with my other identities? With the 2 identities that lived in The City, I have been referring to their memories as if they were my own when wearing the identity. If I really try, I can separate myself, but it's either tiring to do so, or I do it when it's necessary. They also don't try to sway my emotions when not equipped. While One Sin hasn't ever done what Scorched Girl does, I just feel like they're similar.

That would leave us 2 distinct groups. I guess I could call them 'real' and 'unreal' identities, at least until I get a better word for them. Real identities are ones that have memories, while unreal identities do not. Technically, I did have 'memories' in the form of a dream about each of them, but they more felt like a dream-dream rather than a memory-dream. Does this mean that One Sin could influence me? I don't think it has been at least.

I set that aside for now; it's probably better to think more when I have more identities to get data off of. I still have to complete my final test. I equip my T Corp Technician identity. I check my current time bank and find I have 15 minutes still saved. I can't remember the last time I was so starved for extra time. My monthly stipend as a technician on pay roll covered for enough expenses that I could live quite lavishly if I worked as a Class 3 Collection Staff with the occasional technician work. With that all set, I unequip T Corp Technician and head out the door.

'Hmm, I wonder if The Head could even send an arbiter here for stealing singularity tech. I honestly doubt it, I don't think the head can reach me here; I wouldn't put it past them though.'

-The Light of Brockton Bay-

I feel much more confident then when I start patrolling, so I decided it was time to open my patrols towards ABB and Empire territory. Also, there's the fact that the Merchants have no capes left. Which will most likely reduce gang activity from the Merchants significantly.

I've been chatting with Amy over text messages. She sometimes messages me memes and funny videos. She kind of reminds me of myself when talking, as if she isn't used to making friends, which should be impossible for someone like Panacea.

It's been three hours into my patrol so far. I'm patrolling the border between ABB and Empire 88 territory on the southern part of the city. I don't go too far away from downtown because I want backup to arrive fast if I get into trouble. When I patrolled the Merchants, I wasn't too worried, but the E88 has a lot more capes, and the ABB has Lung. I'm fairly certain I can use T Corp Technician to run away.

I'm about to turn down another street when something catches my eye. I see Aegis and Vista jogging down a nearby street, obviously heading somewhere. That somewhere may have crime! I must go and help these heroes; it's definitely not me being bored out of my mind from walking. It takes a minute to catch up enough for one of them to notice me running after them.

They slow down and face me. I notice their body language stiffens a bit as I approach, which is understandable after what happened yesterday. "Hey, uh, I'm not sure how to ask this, but if you guys are going towards some action, I'd like to join. I know I'm not a ward, but can independents patrol with others? Is that a thing?" Aegis motions for me to run with them.

We all start jogging, with me following their lead. Vista talks to me while Aegis is speaking to who I would assume is on console. "We're allowed to patrol with other heroes, as long as we get permission from a higher-up."

I nod my head. "That's good. I guess you wouldn't too often, since New Wave are the only other heroes in the city aside from the PRT. I guess you could patrol with Glory Girl sometimes."

Vista replies with something I find quite funny. "We're not allowed to patrol with Glory Girl. She causes too much collateral damage, and Piggot thinks we could get injured. We can still fight with each other if we're both at the same fight."

Aegis finished speaking to whoever was on console. "I got an approval from Armsmaster. You're allowed to join our patrol, but you aren't allowed to use the Breaker form you used yesterday."

That makes sense. From the PRT's perspective, I completely understand. To them, it probably looked like some sort of trump card that made me crazy. "Don't worry, I have something else I'd like to use."

Aegis turns his head to me. "Something else?"

"Yeah, I got a new identity last night. It's probably now my best identity to fight with if I don't want to be lethal."

Aegis takes a second to think before tilting his head back as if he realized something. "I'm guessing you call your different Breaker states 'identities.' Anything we should be aware of?"

I take a moment to think of what would be important. "I have a chainsaw as a weapon that I don't need to use and won't deploy, but you'll see a bit of it. I'm equipped with a set of tinkertech armour and a tinkertech pickaxe. The pickaxe can extract people's effective time, which means if I were to harvest 30 minutes, they would experience the world at half speed for an hour. I can also use said extracted time on myself to give me more effective time."

I give them a second to digest before continuing. "The time stuff is a little weird. In a similar way to Velocity, it's better if I slow down just before. Just don't touch them, or else some of their slowness might stick on to you. Also, the pickaxe needs time to do its work, so I'll just use my fists after it starts its work on the first person I hit. Overall, don't be afraid to touch slowed people; they can handle it."

Aegis gives me a nod. "Noted. We're currently heading towards a pair of Empire 88 gang members who have been harassing people. My plan is for you to incapacitate one of them while we get the other." Which makes me nod my head in agreement.

T Corp time dilation is a little funky. Touching people with more or less time makes very small local changes to try and even out time usage. Your saved up time is then used to correct said time change. The harder the contact, the more time is used. It's why people don't explode when someone bumps into someone else when they're 20 times faster. Time equalizes at the contact site, allowing for the impact to be greatly lessened on the slower person but also greatly increased on the sped up person. This is also why T Corp collectors slow their time to normal before they hit an attack.

It takes us another minute to arrive where the report had specified. From what I can hear, it sounds like the right place. "Hey you chink, come over here." A pair of bald white guys are running 2 dozen feet behind an Asian woman who has a scared look on her face. They're covered in Nazi tattoos, and one has a knife in hand. Why does every single E88 gangbanger look the exact same? I know the "Aryan supremacy" and whatnot, but I swear they have a secret cape that can make clones that look exactly like what a neo-nazi would look like.

I change into my T Corp Technician identity. "That's enough to arrest them, right?" I get confirmation from Aegis. "Good. It's time to collect some fines. I'll get the one on the right. Also, if you could leave your guy conscious, that would be great." They looked a little confused at the request. A girl's got to skim extra time off her tax collections.

I trigger the mechanism to put my armour on. It uses a full minute of extra time, but it's on instantly. I set my watch to 96 hours per day. Aegis and Vista have already started a second earlier. Aegis is flying towards the guy on the left as Vista starts to bend space around the sidewalk to make a wall between the Empire tax evaders and the Asian woman.

The tax evaders are way outmatched. It takes me 3 seconds standard time to reach my target. The guy has started to pull a gun out of his pocket. 'Oooh, a fine for unregistered inventions too.' I switch to regular time and snatch the gun out of his hand before promptly speeding up again. I take my pickaxe and slam it into him. While most attacks need me to slow down first, the pickaxe harvest technically doesn't hit him, so I don't need to.

Funny thing is, T Corp has a policy that people have a minimum of 4 hours in a day. However, we aren't in T Corp anymore. The pickaxe automatically sets the person to the lowest time it can set, which is 1 minute per day. The pickaxe hovers just above the tax evader, slowly siphoning his time. I set no limit to the amount of time it can drain; I want the most I can get. The pickaxe acts as a stabilizing force for the people it siphons from. If I harvest 20 hours, I could just leave him nearly frozen for 20 hours. Instead, when law enforcement arrives, I can have the pickaxe set them to something like 20 hours a day and have them be slower than normal for 5 days straight.

Aegis and Vista take a little bit more time with their arrest, but it goes smoothly. I know the PRT has to take some credit to, so I just let them do their thing. I walk up to Aegis. "I'm just going to tax some time from this guy too." I say as I dislodge the pickaxe from the guy I hit first. "I'm only going to take a few hours. The guy might be a little slower for a day, but it won't leave any injuries."

Vista looks at the guy frozen in place. "Taxing... time? And didn't you say it can spread by touch? What about when someone needs to move him around?"

I wince, realising I've been using lingo from The City again. I guess I should explain a bit more. "The spread should be fine; it's based on how hard the contact is, so a punch spreads a lot more. It also heavily depends on how much slower the guy is. If you punch a guy that's 20 times slower than yeah, you'll be a lot slower for an hour or so. If the guy is only at 0.8 times speed and your just leading him into a cell, however, you'll probably only be 1 percent slower for a minute max." I slam the pickaxe into gangbanger number 2

"Also, the taxing thing is just the job this identity had. I collected taxes and fines from people in the form of time."

Aegis tilts his head. "And that's common?"

I guess it would seem weird for a non-City resident. "Yeah, it was a form of currency where this identity lived. Don't ask how that worked; you're just asking a tinker how their tech works at that point."

I realise that with the wards here, I don't have to answer questions about the fight to the PRT. "Well, if you guys are here, that means I don't have to wait around and answer questions. I'm going to head home early today." I stick my hand out to Aegis, and he takes it in his own. "A pleasure to work with you, Aegis." I turn to Vista and shake her hand. "And it was a pleasure to work with you as well, Vista."

Aegis and Vista gave me their respective "It was good meeting you in person." And, "have a safe trip home." I collected about 10 hours total from those guys. Normally, it's a little bit of a pain to look for a safe spot to change, but when you can go to 50 times regular speed, cameras can barely keep up with you.

50 times the normal speed is the highest my watch can go as a T Corp Class 3 Collection Staff, but I do know how to make watches that can handle higher time dilation. I'm also fairly certain that I can make some of the exotic materials not found in this universe that allow the T Corp singularity to function. If not, then I'm kind of screwed in that regard. Another thing to think about in the future.

Now all I've got to wait for is Wednesday, which is when I do my power testing.

-The Light of Brockton Bay-

-Taylor's POV, 2 days later

I get into bed after getting prepared for sleep. I took a small break in patrols. I've been doing them for a couple days straight now. Mainly, I've been messing with my power these last few days. I made a certain cheap chemical that I know for a fact doesn't exist on Earth Bet. It didn't cost much either; I still can't figure out why some things seemingly take more light than others, but it seems like it's one of those things where you use it until you figure it out.

I have gotten a better grasp on how much light I have, and it's allowed me to realise that my light production is increasing. It took me 3 days to dive for something as deep as my T Corp Technician. Now it's only been 2 and I can feel that I'm ready for another dive that deep. I don't wait any longer, so I close my eyes and step into The Otherside.

I got some more new additions in my little private space; one of the big things was that I was able to make a power source for the street lamp. While everything may be fake in here, it means I can make power sources in the real world. Imagine going camping without needing to bring anything. The river is approaching double the size it was when I first came here. I don't know if that's a good thing, but I'm going to assume it is. Using a diving board that I made, which took me a surprising amount of time to get right, I do a proper dive into the river.

It's almost relaxing being in here now, and breathing water gets a little easier each time. Slowly, I dive down until I reach about where Scorched Girl and T Corp Technician were. Maybe I can go deeper, but I don't want to stretch my luck. I swim around that level some more until I reach a star. I'm surprised to find it radiating a sensation much like Scorched Girl had done when I pulled her up.

The star itself is noticeably smaller than normal, but it doesn't feel like that's a bad thing. I can feel protection, kindness, and security that have been corrupted by worry and paranoia. Now all that's left is punishment on all who wrong others, no matter how small that wronging may be. It doesn't feel whole either; it's like it's only 1 part of a larger story.

The trip up wasn't bad; I know I'm getting stronger as every swim is better than the last. The star itself doesn't have much to show. A single white bird sits up on the canopy of a forest filled with black trees, resting. It has a single red splotch in the middle of its chest that looks almost painted on, but I knew there was more to it. The star sinks into me like it always does, and I can feel... myself getting... tired... like... usual.