Lila shifted her thought processes down to what she thought of as her bare minimum. At 0.1% of maximum, her mind still processed thoughts per second higher than the trillions. She shifted her interpersonal skills down to twenty-five percent of her thought processes and let the rest run off on flights of fancy. She discovered a lot of her best ideas that way. Sometimes her subconscious was better at coming up with new ideas that she was. Maybe that psychotherapist wasn't a bad idea. In the time since she triggered, she had lost touch with all of her old friends. It was hard to empathize with people who couldn't think more than a thought or two at the same time. She pushed that random thought out of her head.
Now that she had her mind focused more on interpersonal skills, she began to notice some things as she followed her mother down the stair to the kitchen. Every five to ten feet, her mother would turn and give her a half-hearted smile. She smelled waffles and bacon, which meant that her mother had dragged out the monstrosity of a waffle iron. If she went to that much trouble to make Lila's favorite breakfast food, she likely had a bombshell that she was getting ready to drop.
It was agony not to say anything, but she found that sometimes it paid to let people present their thoughts at their own speed, rather than dragging it out of them at hers. Her mom had to know that Lila already knew something was up.
"Oh, waffles," Lila said as they reached the kitchen, playing along for now. She grabbed a plate and stacked three waffles perfectly on top of each other and covered the top with maple syrup. As she sat, she scooped up some bacon and dragged a piece through the syrup before cramming the whole thing in her mouth. "Mmmmm, thanks Mom," she said, specifically using 'Mom' since it would make her mother feel better.
Lilly had pulled her own waffle onto her plate and buttered it before pouring the syrup. She grabbed a couple of pieces of bacon and nibbled on them between small bites of her waffle.
In the meantime, Lila was digging in with gusto. Just because she didn't need food anymore didn't mean that she didn't enjoy the taste. She just couldn't be bothered with unnecessary things when she was working.
"So," Lilly said nervously, "what are you planning to build next?"
"I was thinking of upgrading my eye, for starters," Lila replied. "It's already way out of date. It just can't keep up with what I need it to do."
"I'm surprised you hadn't thought about replacing your other one," Lilly said, but that was a test to see where Lila's thinking was at today. Lila focused her thinker power and ran some interpersonal simulations through her brain. She had a pretty good idea where this was going.
"I would like to keep as many natural parts as possible," Lila replied. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that replacing my other eye would mess with some of my other powers. I'd rather not find out the hard way." She stirred her waffles through some syrup, then took a bite.
"That's good," Lilly replied with a grin, "I'd like to keep as much of you as I can."
Lila saw the moment in Lilly's eyes when she gave up the pretense.
"You already figured it out, didn't you," she said, her grin slipping, "and you probably already have a hundred arguments against it."
In reality, she had seven hundred and eighty before she stopped trying to think up any, but a good half of those were emotional appeals, which she preferred not to exploit.
"It makes sense," Lila said finally. "It's been two years and all my old friends have moved on. I know you worry that if something happens to you, I won't have anyone and bury myself in my workshop. It all makes sense. If you want me to, I can go back to school. Purely for the socialization, I'm not going to learn anything there," she concluded.
"I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad that you let me win that argument so easily," her mother said. "I can have you enrolled in Arcadia by next week."
"Not Arcadia or Immaculata," Lila replied. "I don't want to go to a school where any of my old friends are going. It would make it weird."
"Lila, the only place left is Winslow, and you know what that place is like," Lilly argued. "The gangs practically run the place. I heard there was a shooting there last year."
"Oh no, a shooting," she replied dryly, picking up her fork and jamming it hard into her arm. As she pulled the mangled fork away from her arm, waiving it around for her mother to see, she continued, "whatever shall I do."
"Fine, you're bullet-proof, but there are other ways to get hurt," Lilly insisted.
"Mom," she chuckled, "it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone there can harm me physically or emotionally. I won't even dignify adding mentally to that list. I could literally plan out the entire school year from the first day to the last and it would work that way within a minor standard of deviation."
"You know you sound like a supervillain, right?" her mother replied.
"Ah yes, you fell victim to my dastardly plan," she said pompously, waving the mangled fork in the air, her volume increasing as she spoke. "Now you will have to contend with being safe for the entire school year. MMMMWAAAAAAAHAHAHA!"
"Are all Thinkers such smart-asses too?" Lilly asked.
"It's either that or get REEEEALY frustrated," her daughter said with a chuckle. "Luckily, I can turn mine down a little, but it just feels like I'm wasting time when I do. I get your point about socializing. I do...but every hour out of my lab adds an hour to the time it takes to drag the human race kicking and screaming off this planet. And, as for you dying, I guess I'll have to make some hard-light armor for you or something." Lila's eyes glossed over for a moment, then she picked up her phone and said, "SANDI, remind me to make mom some hard-light armor. We could miniaturize the projector into a locket or ring with a capacitor to power the whole thing while sending me an alert. The power should last for about eighteen minutes."
Her mother gave her a smile, "See, if you hadn't come down for breakfast, you would have missed out on the whole 'making me invulnerable' thing."
"Not invulnerable, Mom," Lila replied the grin gone from her face. "You shouldn't joke about dying. I really would be lost without you."
Lilly's face changed to her mom-mode face, "Honey, everyone dies eventually. You can't just hang out and protect me forever."
"You're wrong on both counts, mom," Lila replied with a smile she didn't really feel. "Thanks for the waffles."
"Where are you going?" Lilly asked.
"Well, it looks like High School next week. I'll try to make a friend. Right now, I'm going to make a miniature hard-light armor projector for you. I should have it knocked out in about two hours," she concluded. As she walked out of the kitchen, she cranked her brain up to full power, leaving one percent devoted to interpersonal relationships and stopped at the door to turn toward her mother, dramatically and said "I mean it mom. I'm pretty sure I can make it so you live forever, and I'm pretty sure I can hang out and protect you just as long," before turning back toward her lab.
Her estimate was wrong. She had her mother's hard-light projector ready in forty-seven minutes. She didn't often devote ninety-nine percent of her mind to a problem, but this was her mom's safety. Riiiiiight, she didn't need a psychotherapist at all.