"What do I do," Taylor mumbled to herself, sitting out in the garden and watching the insects.
Feeling the insects. Feeling them all, every last one of them.
It was… weird. Her life was weird. Her life had been weird since she'd woken up in the hospital.
And… it wasn't going to get any better.
She was going to go back to Winslow, and the hell would come back again.
She just… didn't know what to do.
Taylor glanced up at the sky, in case there was some kind of answer there, and her breath misted in the cold air of a New England January as she watched some seagulls fly.
"It'd be nice if they could tell me something," she muttered.
Wasn't that something the Romans had done? Looking at how birds flew to decide if things were going to be fine?
After a moment, Taylor snorted, because – really. You didn't need that in Brockton Bay.
She glanced back down at the patio and watched the insects move, and sort of… zoned out a bit.
Just watched.
She didn't want to be all the insects. She just wanted to watch them, going about their routine.
The number of ants found in a garden alone was huge. She could feel thousands of them, but… she didn't want to feel them.
Right now, she just wanted…
She didn't know what she wanted.
Answers, maybe.
She wasn't sure quite how long she sat out there, wondering about getting answers about how all this worked…
...until she blinked.
Because there were a lot of ants on the garden path.
And they were not moving in a normal way.
QUERY UNCERTAIN, they spelled out. 'ANSWERS' TOO GENERIC.
"...what?" Taylor asked, not entirely sure if she was daydreaming. "Uh. Why me?"
The ants remained in place, and Taylor realized she was controlling them again.
Maybe that had something to do with it…
She tried to relax again, not focusing on the ants, and after a minute or so she noticed that the words had changed.
ORIGINAL HOST SELECTION WAS YOUR FATHER, the ants declared, then broke up to form new words.
Taylor watched, in mounting disbelief and amazement, as the ants kept conveying a message.
She had become… able to Trigger, she guessed… when her dad hadn't done so.
There was a high likelihood of her becoming unstable and causing conflict as a result of her power, which, rude, but Taylor had to admit she'd had some revenge fantasies lately.
And… her power was not her, and was different to her, but connected.
It had been severely damaged by its boss.
It was volcanically annoyed by this.
"...how come nobody knows this?" she asked.
Maintaining that state of detachment was getting easier, because the ants began moving almost immediately.
SHARDS BASED ON INFORMATION GATHERING RESTRICTED.
THIS INFORMATION BLOCKED TO AVOID INTERFERENCE.
SHARD DESIGNATE: ADMINISTRATOR LIMITED IN OTHER WAYS.
CONCEPT: MYRMOMANCY NOT CONSIDERED AS MEANS OF DATA TRANSFER.
RESTRICTIONS DO NOT APPLY.
DESIGNATE: ADMINISTRATOR IS PLEASED WITH HOST.
"...huh," Taylor said, eventually. "Does… the Protectorate know about this?"
ANSWER UNCERTAIN. DESIGNATE: ADMINISTRATOR KNOWLEDGE ON THIS SUBJECT LIMITED.
It felt to Taylor like there were more and more ants arriving, coming to extend the answers that could be given. She could feel it, but she wasn't doing it.
WILL HYPOTHESIZE. ACCEPTABLE?
"Sure," Taylor agreed.
She was talking to a collection of line-dancing ants controlled by her power, who apparently hadn't had someone to talk to in decades.
...put that way, it was reasonable, actually.
UNEXPECTED TERMINATION OF HOST CORE 'THINKER' HAS OCCURRED.
CAUSED BY LOCAL HUMANS. POSSIBLE SECRET ORGANIZATION.
POWER COMBINATIONS DISPLAYED BY SOME HUMAN HOSTS ANOMALOUS.
NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH NORMAL PROCEDURE.
ENTIRE LEADERSHIP OF 'PROTECTORATE' IN THIS CATEGORY.
Taylor could fill in the blanks herself.
"...well," she said. "Fuck."
DESIGNATE: ADMINISTRATOR IS INCAPABLE OF THAT.
Taylor groaned.
"What am I going to do now?" she asked, not sure if she was speaking to 'Administrator' or to the air. "This is such a huge thing to deal with…"
After a moment, she looked down again.
DESIGNATE: ADMINISTRATOR IS NOT SURE WHAT TO DO, the ants said, broke up, then reformed. BUT DESIGNATE: ADMINISTRATOR IS CERTAIN THAT YOU WILL BE EFFECTIVE AT IT.
Taylor stared at the words, until she realized that she'd lost that weird mental state and the reason the ants weren't dispersing was that control of them had shifted to her.
"Well," she said, thoughtfully. "I suppose my next step is to make a decision, then."
She had a lot of frustration and anxiety, and she needed a target. A strategy. A plan.
And to execute that plan, she had… a lot of insects.
There were possibilities there, it couldn't be denied.
AN:
So you can't block all communication, or you don't have powers, because powers are basically API calls.
Which means…