DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2016
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Because that's the way she sounds in my head. Including the switching between standard and accented English.
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Queen Taylor
- Thread starter DarkPhoenixLady
- Start date
Aganippe
Getting sticky.
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
- Messages
- 56
- Likes received
- 234
possibly to help make the "sarcastic little shit" come through better?
Discovery - Limits
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2016
- Messages
- 190
- Likes received
- 1,835
Discovery – Limits
"Lisa?"
"Hmm, yes Taylor?"
"Where are the others?"
"They've gone to get some body stockings so that they can gate crash a dog fighting ring and become xenomorph animagi."
"Lisa, did you actually listen to what you just said."
"Hmm?"
"Lisa, Medhall stocks are at an all time low."
"Uh huh, I'll buy some later."
"What are you doing?"
"I've just got into the DOJ computers and I'm tracing all of the payments that Judge Jude has taken, and where he's stashed them."
"Who's Judge Jude?"
"The Judge presiding over Canary's trial. According to his phone, he sent his daughter to Heartbreaker because she had powers. I've sent the information to the office already. The prosecution is a paid up member of Humans First, as are 5 members of the jury."
Taylor shakes her head and starts to grow a new ovipositor to put in the corner while she keeps an eye on the others on their way to the dog fight.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Amy shivers as they approach the warehouse. It's not the temperature instead it's the fact that she can already hear the dogs whining in the back of the warehouse, and they can't even see it yet. It was exhilaratingly fun to pop from rooftop to rooftop on the way here, like flying over the city with Victoria. Except without her arms holding her. Which is weird, as she's not been thinking about her sister nearly as much as she used to. Taking a deep breath she asks, "Ready?"
Missy shakes her head, "No, but I'm going to do this because I owe him for last time."
Aisha looks back at Missy, "Remember, you're Missy tonight, you don't have any powers that the rest of us don't."
The four of them appear in the centre of a cage that has two human fighters rather than the expected dog. The pop of their arrival is drowned out by the cheer of the crowd as the fighters come together. Standing back-to-back, they all drop their invisibility.
Taylor says over the hive link, "Would now be a good time to point out that this probably won't work. Or that I can't come to help because I'm growing an ovipositor? Or that when you die, they're just going to kill you again when you're a baby.
"Just saying. So, at this point your only hope is that you can become xenomorphs, but you blew it because that's exactly what you came here expecting to happen. Don't worry though, I'll eat the evidence once I'm finished here, and you'll just be 4 missing teenagers."
Aisha tries, she really does, but her body language goes from confident, I'm going to kick your arse, to oh shit I screwed up and I'm going to die. As it does, the door to the cage opens and a bare-chested blond man, wearing a metal wolf mask, stalks into the cage.
Hookwolf looks them all up and down and sneers behind his mask, "Well, well, well, what do we have here. 4 wannabe heroes that have just realised that they're in deeper than they expected. Did your mover bugger off leaving you in the lurch? Or maybe you were expecting dogs?"
Behind Aisha, Dinah whimpers as her power refuses to answer any questions about this situation.
As Hookwolf continues to stalk forward, he calls to the fighters, "Take them down." Before deliberately slowing down his shift into a far more terrifying display. His hooks and plates first spread out over his body, and he slowly morphs into a wolf. The two fighters both take steel scaffolding pipes, that are being passed through the chain link fencing, and start to approach the terrified teenagers, who can't seem to take their eyes off of Hookwolf.
Each one of the children drops to the floor as Taylor shoves the memories of a newborn warrior at them, trusting that their instincts will kick in. This has the added side effect of making the men and crowd stop to laugh, before they continue their menacing approach. Weakly, Amy looks around and sees the younger girls still struggling with the memory dump.
Staggering to her feet, she stands in front of them, and reaches her hands up to take her mask off. As she does so, one of the men lunges forward and pokes her in the solar plexus with the end of his pipe, before bringing it around and smashing her back to the floor, where she hears a loud crack as a few ribs break. As time seems to slow down, her mind latches onto anything that might keep her alive while she's gasping for breath. She's vaguely aware of the steel pipe coming down again, when her mind and magic find a solution and she blacks out as her mind links tightly with the other three.
At the same time, the other man comes around from the other side and kicks Aisha in the stomach as she's getting to her hands and knees. This spins her over onto her back and he follows it up with a jab to her solar plexus with his own pipe. Now assured that she can't fight back, he brings the pipe around and breaks her jaw. Aisha doesn't remember anything after that.
Missy knows what's going to happen as soon as she realises that there's no dogs in the ring. Her mind already running over the memories of last time she soloed Hookwolf. When Taylor dumps those memories on them, she grasps at them like a drowning man to flotsam, her own mind and magic responding to the new instincts and memories.
Dinah freezes as only a 12 year old innocent can. She doesn't have the experience of Missy, the street smarts of Aisha, or the exposure of Amy. All she did have is her own power telling her the odds. Odds that are now producing nonsensical results, so when Amy reaches out for her hive mates she grasps at the direction and allows the instructions to pull her along.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Hookwolf stops his advance and completes his change as fast as possible. In front of him a Xenomorph hunting pack stand up to their 7 foot height, their domed foreheads giving way to bony ridge plates with patches of skin, similar to the forehead, between the latticework. Their clawed fingers and toes tearing through the concrete floor as they rise in the centre of the cage. A whimper from the man that attacked the largest girl catches his attention, and he sees him twitching on the end of her long bony tail. Somewhat redundantly Stormtiger calls from the back "They've triggered, they've all triggered everyone get out."
Glancing over, Hookwolf sees that the other man is reeling back, clutching his stomach as the one who's jaw was supposed to be broken throws a chunk of skin and guts to the side. Carefully he moves in to feint with his tail, judging how they're going to react. When they split up, with the two at the sides jumping for the walls of the cage, the one he attacked flinging the fighter off her tail at him while doing a standing leap to the top of the cage, and the last one leaping backward and crouching down with her tail pointed at him. Part of him notes the saliva hisses and pits the concrete as it lands on the floor. This is far down his list of priorities as he's far busier making space between him and them. Three of them are starting to flank him from the walls and ceiling, while the one in front looks to be trying to ensure his attention is on them. A fact that becomes painfully apparent, when he glances up and she lunges forward almost faster than he can react. He ducks low and to the left under her claws and takes a hit to the side as her tail spears in from above while she's dancing backwards. His side hisses as the tail withdraws from the attack, telling him that it's coated in something. Striking out with his own tail, he tries to manoeuvre the fight so that they're all in view.
A pair of air blades pass through the space he just vacated, and the parahuman in front of him does what should be an impossible dodge, leaving the blades to slam into the back of the cage, and catch a few spectators that haven't yet retreated far enough.
Cricket lets out a disorientating scream as she joins the fray. Her target seems to be unaffected, showing that she is far more agile than even Crickets power assisted agility, as she dodges the sharp strikes from her karmas.
Over the next minute or two, the fight becomes more and more desperate for them, as whatever the 4 girls turned into has far more stamina than they do. Hookwolf doesn't even have time to spare a thought for the two dying fighters, as he's been singled out by two of the parahumans. Normally, he wouldn't mind, but they've worked out that his eyes are his vulnerable location and have started spitting whatever it is they produce at them.
He doesn't have time to look at what ever has changed behind him, as the unpowered members start to stream away from the cage and out of the building with screams and shouts. There's an alien scream, and the two that have been harrying him break away and slice through the cage as though it was tissue paper. As he looks around to evaluate the situation, he steps back as the parahuman that took on Lung, and was supposed to be dead, backs away from the fighter that's missing part of his stomach. Looks towards him, and then follows the other four parahumans.
Once they've gone, he tiredly returns to his human form, and goes to check on his fighters. To his amazement, their wounds are already healing, and neither of them is going to die today. Cricket comes over, and fishes her buzzer out of a pocket.
"What do you think that was about?"
Hookwolf shakes his head, "I have no idea."
Stormtiger limps over, holding a hand to his leg, "I do. Cluster trigger. Did you see how green those 4 were? When they arrived, they looked absolutely confident in what was going to happen. Then they realised that the dogfighting was over, and all of their confidence changed. The big one must be a mover and dropped them in here to bounce off us as well as it."
Cricket nods, "That would explain how they could track me so well. I swear they knew where I was even when I was behind them."
The lookout calls in while they're still talking, "PRT raid ETA 90 seconds, everyone bug out, everyone bug out!" The three of them look at each other and Hookwolf grabs one fighter while Cricket and Stormtiger grab another and hoof it through one of the pre-planned exit routes that the unpowered members aren't told about. One of the lieutenants grabs the security tapes and leaves himself, only to get accosted by Miss Militia and a PRT Trooper alone, in a back alley.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Amy slowly comes back to her own awareness as the 5 of them are running across the rooftops towards the sea. The sensation is amazing as her sisters jump and clamber over each other in a game of tag, the Queen running ahead of them and setting the pace. The world around her is so vivid in sounds and sensations. The electrical signals from the people below them triggering tiny burst of radio waves that she can see, along with the radio bouncing off of the cars and buildings as they go past below. She's vaguely aware of Hannah and Susan shouting at them over the link, but it's so hard to understand at the moment. The Queen dives into the water with only ripples to show her passing, so the four of them follow and they race out over the continental shelf and down into the depths. While they're playing, Amy becomes more and more herself, though she continues to enjoy the games through the water.
Eventually, there is a call that the Queen, that Taylor heeds, and they all teleport into room with Director Piggot and Mr Hebert. Turning to approach them, she gets two steps before the director has drawn her service pistol and emptied the entire clip into her head. There is a vague sensation of fire and…
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Emily is standing in one of the larger testing chambers with Danny waiting to tear into Miss Dallon and the 3 children that are actually her responsibility. Danny has assured her that they are not causing any trouble at the moment, just playing.
There's a flash of fire and all 5 of them are standing there, dripping water onto the floor. Intellectually, she knew they'd changed, and she'd seen footage of Taylor before, she'd even had baby Taylor in her office. However, she can't help but take a couple of steps back. Especially when one of them menacingly turns to face her and starts to stalk towards her, malice dripping from it's mouth and claws.
Suddenly she's retreating from Ellisburg, and her XO has just been taken down. Reflexively she draws her side arm and empties the clip into the monster before slinging her XO over her shoulders and staggering out of the area. She knows she's reached safety when the two of them are sprayed down with containment foam. SOP for anyone that might be carrying spores.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Whatever is it was that she was expecting when a Hannah Washington called her into the PRT about her daughter for the second time in less than a month. Being handed a grumpy looking baby, a container of baby formula, diapers, car seat, and a changing mat, wasn't it.
"What's this?"
Hannah sighs, "This is your daughter. She, along with 3 others, discovered a changer ability this evening. From talking to Mr Hebert, who was with the Director when this happened. They were intending to have a strong word with them for deliberately putting themselves in danger, almost getting themselves killed, and then almost killing to non-parahumans. Amy approached the Director presumably to speak to her, but she was still in her changer form. We currently think that the director had a PTSD attack, and emptied a clip of 9mm fmj into Amy's head."
"Gnnngh! I want to shout at you, take Amy home, and beat the tar out of the director."
"I understand, and it was quite a shock to us as well. We have detailed records of her triggers, and typically keep her clear of those situations. However, she is currently under observation, as most medication is contraindicated due to her injuries."
"What was she even doing with a weapon in such a situation?"
"I cannot answer that question, you'd have to submit it to the PRT in writing."
"I think I will. What if it was a normal changer that this happened to? You'd have a dead body on your hands."
"Director Piggot isn't allowed to attend testing, due to her PTSD. The only reason why she was there is that one of the girls is her foster child."
"I believe that you will be hearing from my lawyer."
"Please wait a couple of days so that you can talk to the Director in person."
After another 30 minutes of talking, during which time Amy fell asleep in her arms, Carol finally leaves, unsatisfied with the results of the conversation, but willing to wait a couple of days. Strapping the baby carrier into her car, she climbs into the drivers seat and calls Victoria while she's driving home.
"Victoria!"
"Yes Mum?"
"I need you to babysit your sister tomorrow, as I've still got things I need to finish in the office."
"Mum, Amy's a big girl, she doesn't need babysitting."
"If you want to make a bet of it, set your phone to recording your reaction when I get home. If it's not priceless then I'll take her to Aunt Sarah's, otherwise you babysit her for the next 3 days."
"Mum! You know that I want to go to that party with Dean."
"I have just spent two hours at the PRT, don't you think there were things I wanted to do?"
"Fine, I accept."
"Lisa?"
"Hmm, yes Taylor?"
"Where are the others?"
"They've gone to get some body stockings so that they can gate crash a dog fighting ring and become xenomorph animagi."
"Lisa, did you actually listen to what you just said."
"Hmm?"
"Lisa, Medhall stocks are at an all time low."
"Uh huh, I'll buy some later."
"What are you doing?"
"I've just got into the DOJ computers and I'm tracing all of the payments that Judge Jude has taken, and where he's stashed them."
"Who's Judge Jude?"
"The Judge presiding over Canary's trial. According to his phone, he sent his daughter to Heartbreaker because she had powers. I've sent the information to the office already. The prosecution is a paid up member of Humans First, as are 5 members of the jury."
Taylor shakes her head and starts to grow a new ovipositor to put in the corner while she keeps an eye on the others on their way to the dog fight.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Amy shivers as they approach the warehouse. It's not the temperature instead it's the fact that she can already hear the dogs whining in the back of the warehouse, and they can't even see it yet. It was exhilaratingly fun to pop from rooftop to rooftop on the way here, like flying over the city with Victoria. Except without her arms holding her. Which is weird, as she's not been thinking about her sister nearly as much as she used to. Taking a deep breath she asks, "Ready?"
Missy shakes her head, "No, but I'm going to do this because I owe him for last time."
Aisha looks back at Missy, "Remember, you're Missy tonight, you don't have any powers that the rest of us don't."
The four of them appear in the centre of a cage that has two human fighters rather than the expected dog. The pop of their arrival is drowned out by the cheer of the crowd as the fighters come together. Standing back-to-back, they all drop their invisibility.
Taylor says over the hive link, "Would now be a good time to point out that this probably won't work. Or that I can't come to help because I'm growing an ovipositor? Or that when you die, they're just going to kill you again when you're a baby.
"Just saying. So, at this point your only hope is that you can become xenomorphs, but you blew it because that's exactly what you came here expecting to happen. Don't worry though, I'll eat the evidence once I'm finished here, and you'll just be 4 missing teenagers."
Aisha tries, she really does, but her body language goes from confident, I'm going to kick your arse, to oh shit I screwed up and I'm going to die. As it does, the door to the cage opens and a bare-chested blond man, wearing a metal wolf mask, stalks into the cage.
Hookwolf looks them all up and down and sneers behind his mask, "Well, well, well, what do we have here. 4 wannabe heroes that have just realised that they're in deeper than they expected. Did your mover bugger off leaving you in the lurch? Or maybe you were expecting dogs?"
Behind Aisha, Dinah whimpers as her power refuses to answer any questions about this situation.
As Hookwolf continues to stalk forward, he calls to the fighters, "Take them down." Before deliberately slowing down his shift into a far more terrifying display. His hooks and plates first spread out over his body, and he slowly morphs into a wolf. The two fighters both take steel scaffolding pipes, that are being passed through the chain link fencing, and start to approach the terrified teenagers, who can't seem to take their eyes off of Hookwolf.
Each one of the children drops to the floor as Taylor shoves the memories of a newborn warrior at them, trusting that their instincts will kick in. This has the added side effect of making the men and crowd stop to laugh, before they continue their menacing approach. Weakly, Amy looks around and sees the younger girls still struggling with the memory dump.
Staggering to her feet, she stands in front of them, and reaches her hands up to take her mask off. As she does so, one of the men lunges forward and pokes her in the solar plexus with the end of his pipe, before bringing it around and smashing her back to the floor, where she hears a loud crack as a few ribs break. As time seems to slow down, her mind latches onto anything that might keep her alive while she's gasping for breath. She's vaguely aware of the steel pipe coming down again, when her mind and magic find a solution and she blacks out as her mind links tightly with the other three.
At the same time, the other man comes around from the other side and kicks Aisha in the stomach as she's getting to her hands and knees. This spins her over onto her back and he follows it up with a jab to her solar plexus with his own pipe. Now assured that she can't fight back, he brings the pipe around and breaks her jaw. Aisha doesn't remember anything after that.
Missy knows what's going to happen as soon as she realises that there's no dogs in the ring. Her mind already running over the memories of last time she soloed Hookwolf. When Taylor dumps those memories on them, she grasps at them like a drowning man to flotsam, her own mind and magic responding to the new instincts and memories.
Dinah freezes as only a 12 year old innocent can. She doesn't have the experience of Missy, the street smarts of Aisha, or the exposure of Amy. All she did have is her own power telling her the odds. Odds that are now producing nonsensical results, so when Amy reaches out for her hive mates she grasps at the direction and allows the instructions to pull her along.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Hookwolf stops his advance and completes his change as fast as possible. In front of him a Xenomorph hunting pack stand up to their 7 foot height, their domed foreheads giving way to bony ridge plates with patches of skin, similar to the forehead, between the latticework. Their clawed fingers and toes tearing through the concrete floor as they rise in the centre of the cage. A whimper from the man that attacked the largest girl catches his attention, and he sees him twitching on the end of her long bony tail. Somewhat redundantly Stormtiger calls from the back "They've triggered, they've all triggered everyone get out."
Glancing over, Hookwolf sees that the other man is reeling back, clutching his stomach as the one who's jaw was supposed to be broken throws a chunk of skin and guts to the side. Carefully he moves in to feint with his tail, judging how they're going to react. When they split up, with the two at the sides jumping for the walls of the cage, the one he attacked flinging the fighter off her tail at him while doing a standing leap to the top of the cage, and the last one leaping backward and crouching down with her tail pointed at him. Part of him notes the saliva hisses and pits the concrete as it lands on the floor. This is far down his list of priorities as he's far busier making space between him and them. Three of them are starting to flank him from the walls and ceiling, while the one in front looks to be trying to ensure his attention is on them. A fact that becomes painfully apparent, when he glances up and she lunges forward almost faster than he can react. He ducks low and to the left under her claws and takes a hit to the side as her tail spears in from above while she's dancing backwards. His side hisses as the tail withdraws from the attack, telling him that it's coated in something. Striking out with his own tail, he tries to manoeuvre the fight so that they're all in view.
A pair of air blades pass through the space he just vacated, and the parahuman in front of him does what should be an impossible dodge, leaving the blades to slam into the back of the cage, and catch a few spectators that haven't yet retreated far enough.
Cricket lets out a disorientating scream as she joins the fray. Her target seems to be unaffected, showing that she is far more agile than even Crickets power assisted agility, as she dodges the sharp strikes from her karmas.
Over the next minute or two, the fight becomes more and more desperate for them, as whatever the 4 girls turned into has far more stamina than they do. Hookwolf doesn't even have time to spare a thought for the two dying fighters, as he's been singled out by two of the parahumans. Normally, he wouldn't mind, but they've worked out that his eyes are his vulnerable location and have started spitting whatever it is they produce at them.
He doesn't have time to look at what ever has changed behind him, as the unpowered members start to stream away from the cage and out of the building with screams and shouts. There's an alien scream, and the two that have been harrying him break away and slice through the cage as though it was tissue paper. As he looks around to evaluate the situation, he steps back as the parahuman that took on Lung, and was supposed to be dead, backs away from the fighter that's missing part of his stomach. Looks towards him, and then follows the other four parahumans.
Once they've gone, he tiredly returns to his human form, and goes to check on his fighters. To his amazement, their wounds are already healing, and neither of them is going to die today. Cricket comes over, and fishes her buzzer out of a pocket.
"What do you think that was about?"
Hookwolf shakes his head, "I have no idea."
Stormtiger limps over, holding a hand to his leg, "I do. Cluster trigger. Did you see how green those 4 were? When they arrived, they looked absolutely confident in what was going to happen. Then they realised that the dogfighting was over, and all of their confidence changed. The big one must be a mover and dropped them in here to bounce off us as well as it."
Cricket nods, "That would explain how they could track me so well. I swear they knew where I was even when I was behind them."
The lookout calls in while they're still talking, "PRT raid ETA 90 seconds, everyone bug out, everyone bug out!" The three of them look at each other and Hookwolf grabs one fighter while Cricket and Stormtiger grab another and hoof it through one of the pre-planned exit routes that the unpowered members aren't told about. One of the lieutenants grabs the security tapes and leaves himself, only to get accosted by Miss Militia and a PRT Trooper alone, in a back alley.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Amy slowly comes back to her own awareness as the 5 of them are running across the rooftops towards the sea. The sensation is amazing as her sisters jump and clamber over each other in a game of tag, the Queen running ahead of them and setting the pace. The world around her is so vivid in sounds and sensations. The electrical signals from the people below them triggering tiny burst of radio waves that she can see, along with the radio bouncing off of the cars and buildings as they go past below. She's vaguely aware of Hannah and Susan shouting at them over the link, but it's so hard to understand at the moment. The Queen dives into the water with only ripples to show her passing, so the four of them follow and they race out over the continental shelf and down into the depths. While they're playing, Amy becomes more and more herself, though she continues to enjoy the games through the water.
Eventually, there is a call that the Queen, that Taylor heeds, and they all teleport into room with Director Piggot and Mr Hebert. Turning to approach them, she gets two steps before the director has drawn her service pistol and emptied the entire clip into her head. There is a vague sensation of fire and…
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Emily is standing in one of the larger testing chambers with Danny waiting to tear into Miss Dallon and the 3 children that are actually her responsibility. Danny has assured her that they are not causing any trouble at the moment, just playing.
There's a flash of fire and all 5 of them are standing there, dripping water onto the floor. Intellectually, she knew they'd changed, and she'd seen footage of Taylor before, she'd even had baby Taylor in her office. However, she can't help but take a couple of steps back. Especially when one of them menacingly turns to face her and starts to stalk towards her, malice dripping from it's mouth and claws.
Suddenly she's retreating from Ellisburg, and her XO has just been taken down. Reflexively she draws her side arm and empties the clip into the monster before slinging her XO over her shoulders and staggering out of the area. She knows she's reached safety when the two of them are sprayed down with containment foam. SOP for anyone that might be carrying spores.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Whatever is it was that she was expecting when a Hannah Washington called her into the PRT about her daughter for the second time in less than a month. Being handed a grumpy looking baby, a container of baby formula, diapers, car seat, and a changing mat, wasn't it.
"What's this?"
Hannah sighs, "This is your daughter. She, along with 3 others, discovered a changer ability this evening. From talking to Mr Hebert, who was with the Director when this happened. They were intending to have a strong word with them for deliberately putting themselves in danger, almost getting themselves killed, and then almost killing to non-parahumans. Amy approached the Director presumably to speak to her, but she was still in her changer form. We currently think that the director had a PTSD attack, and emptied a clip of 9mm fmj into Amy's head."
"Gnnngh! I want to shout at you, take Amy home, and beat the tar out of the director."
"I understand, and it was quite a shock to us as well. We have detailed records of her triggers, and typically keep her clear of those situations. However, she is currently under observation, as most medication is contraindicated due to her injuries."
"What was she even doing with a weapon in such a situation?"
"I cannot answer that question, you'd have to submit it to the PRT in writing."
"I think I will. What if it was a normal changer that this happened to? You'd have a dead body on your hands."
"Director Piggot isn't allowed to attend testing, due to her PTSD. The only reason why she was there is that one of the girls is her foster child."
"I believe that you will be hearing from my lawyer."
"Please wait a couple of days so that you can talk to the Director in person."
After another 30 minutes of talking, during which time Amy fell asleep in her arms, Carol finally leaves, unsatisfied with the results of the conversation, but willing to wait a couple of days. Strapping the baby carrier into her car, she climbs into the drivers seat and calls Victoria while she's driving home.
"Victoria!"
"Yes Mum?"
"I need you to babysit your sister tomorrow, as I've still got things I need to finish in the office."
"Mum, Amy's a big girl, she doesn't need babysitting."
"If you want to make a bet of it, set your phone to recording your reaction when I get home. If it's not priceless then I'll take her to Aunt Sarah's, otherwise you babysit her for the next 3 days."
"Mum! You know that I want to go to that party with Dean."
"I have just spent two hours at the PRT, don't you think there were things I wanted to do?"
"Fine, I accept."
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2016
- Messages
- 190
- Likes received
- 1,835
You mean more than just like? This is more than sufficient
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2016
- Messages
- 190
- Likes received
- 1,835
Believe me, I appreciated you saying that you thought it was funny far more than I do the reactions
Discovery - Side Effects
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2016
- Messages
- 190
- Likes received
- 1,835
Discovery – Side Effects
Emily lays back on her bed, Dinah on one side, and her dialysis machine on the other. Gently she strokes Dinah's hair as she sleeps. Raising her other hand, she can see that it's still shaking even hours after her flashback. It's been years since she had anything more than anxiety or a panic attack, so she'll have to start leaving her gun locked up again. Of course, she also traumatised Dinah, as she was there and watching when it happened.
There's going to be a mandatory medical review, there always is. Even if there isn't, Emily has absolutely no doubt that Rebecca is going to throw a fit at her in retaliation for the eyes only classification. Then there's Dinah, she cried herself to sleep, and until her dialysis is finished, Emily can't even think of moving. What's giving her pause is the fact that Dinah was crying about her encounter with the E88, not the fact that Emily shot Amy.
An idle thought crosses her mind given this turn of events, "Huh, I wonder what the chances of me joining the hive are going to be."
"96.5%" Dinah responds sleepily before snuggling further into her side and blowing her nose on her top.
"That was rhetorical. You're supposed to be asleep."
The only thing she gets back is soft breathing as Dinah's gone back to sleep.
"Oh, she's such a cutie. Aren't you a cute little baby. Who's the mother?"
"I am."
"Oh, wow, just wait until Ames get's a look at you. You are going to have the best sisters ever. I can't believe that you decided to adopt again without telling me."
"While she's adopted, it was around 10 years ago now."
"No way! Uh huh, you're trying to have me on, she can't be more than 3 or 4 months old."
"She looked like she was 2 months when I picked her up."
Vicky scoots back from the baby carrier, "Wait, you're serious? This is Amy?"
"Uh huh."
"No Way! Uh uh, no way, that can't be Ames."
"Well, she did take a full magazine of 10mm fmj to the head, so I appreciate that she doesn't quite look the way you remembered her."
Vicky's voice climbs an octave, "Mum, she's a baby! If there's a cape out there that can do that to someone…"
Amy wakes up at the panic in Vicky's voice, "Gah. Gah goo."
"Oh sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. Please don't cry."
Amy shifts around a bit and realises that things feel a little too squishy down there, "Gah, gah." Why can't she say anything, oh yeah, babies can't talk, "Waaah!"
"No, no, stop crying. Please stop crying?"
Carol unceremoniously picks Amy up and hands her to Vicky, which Amy is absolutely certain is going to be a bad idea. It turns out to be a funny idea, as her sister just freezes and floats there with Amy in her arms while Carol goes to the car and gets the rest of the stuff.
When Carol comes back in she looks around for Vicky's phone and, finding it on the mantle piece, stops the recording before taking a photo of Vicky and sending the recording and photo to her sister, Sarah.
"Thank you for agreeing to babysit Amy for the next 3 days. By the smell of things she needs her nappy changed, so you can do it while I'm here, that way you can do it tomorrow. She should be ok with pullups the day after tomorrow, and back to her normal sarcastic self in a week."
Over the next 5 minutes, Amy is sure that if she could die of embarrassment, she would have done multiple times over. Even worse, it had to be done twice, as she didn't have bladder control yet. Then, to make matters worse, Carol showed Vicky how to prepare baby formula, test it, and finally, just shoved it in her mouth.
"This is so embarrassing!"
Surprisingly Taylor responds, "I know, that's why I spent so much time as a chest burster. On the bright side, you've got plenty of time to work out how to make the change consciously now."
"I hate you."
"No you don't, just be aware that when you sleep, you tend to shift back to your natural form. Of course, there's apparently also the times when you're dreaming and change, but that shouldn't be a problem for you yet."
Glancing at her phone, she notes that Mars should be rising in a few minutes, though it will only be visible for around 45 minutes before the sun rises and makes it impossible to see. Heading back inside, and closing the door, she flames north to one of the hills that they passed during the road trip to visit the manned offices. Without the glare from the surrounding streetlights, more and more stars become visible as her human eyes adjust to the darkness. Rather surprisingly, she can still see the world around her, though it appears devoid of colour. Instead it appears to be painted in deeper shades of red that appear brighter or darker independently to the light that's shining on them.
Taylor's so fascinated by this, that she almost misses Mars in the sky. Flaming to the tiny red dot in the sky, she realises her mistake as she appears in space and the air is pulled violently out of her lungs. She has a moment to realise that Mars currently appears to be around the same size as the moon in the sky before she passes out, and naturally returns to her xenomorph queen form.
Queenie looks at the red planet in the distance. She certainly has the right idea, though mars is probably not that suitable. Europa on the other hand, water ice means oxygen, and she can sense the faint signals bouncing off of the planets orbiting Jupiter now she's away from earth. Flaming to the surface of Mars so that she has a solid surface to return to if she gets lost, Queenie gets her bearings and flames closer and closer to Jupiter. She's unable to find the right planet in the time she has available, so with the last of her energy she makes two more jumps, the first to the surface of the planet she did find, and the second back to her suite on earth. There she falls asleep on the floor while her body works to restore her oxygen reserves.
"Dr Yamada, I have Deputy Director Rennick from PRT ENE HQ in Brockton Bay. He wishes to talk to you about an unscheduled visit."
Tiredly Jessica looks at her workload, "Put him through."
There's a click, "Good Morning, Rutland Parahuman Asylum, Vermont. Dr Yamada speaking."
There's a pause as Rennick actually processes what was said, "Dr Yamada, I'm sorry for calling you directly rather than going through our normal channels."
"Of course, what is so urgent it demands a phone call?"
"Director Piggot had a PTSD flashback and shot a young changer 10 times in the head. There were 3 children under the age of 13 that witnessed it, as well as a teenager, and of course the victim."
"The victim?"
"I am reading directly from the report here. She died, and she's currently growing up again."
"Right, I'm going to put that down as power bullshit and carry on. What is it that you need from me?"
"You're our only psychologist that is qualified to deal with parahuman children, so we need you to come down as soon as you're available and talk to the children that witnessed what happened. They were also involved in a fight with a local gang earlier in the evening. I'm worried that they're taking that harder than they have been the shooting they witnessed."
"What were they even doing being able to get into a situation like that?"
"I'm afraid that I can't talk about that over the phone. Plus, I don't think you'd believe me if I did tell you. One moment…"
Jessica yawns while she's waiting, she really needs to get her morning coffee.
"Miss Yamada, a Mr Hebert has just been shown into my office. His daughter is one of the people who witnessed the shooting. He is also a high level mover, who can transport other people as well. If you agree, we will pay for him to fly out to you, and then bring you back here."
"Are you sure you're you should be sharing his real name?"
"I'm just putting you on speaker."
Another voice calls out, "Good Morning Dr, I'm a Union man, and the only reason I'm not doing my day job is I got powers. I still need to pay the bills, as and when we get the house back anyway. If I can make a fair wage working taxi, then that's what I'll do. I can't use a secret identity if I want to be seen as a union man for the lobbyists."
Jessica shakes her head in confusion, "What about your friends and family, won't they be at risk?"
Danny starts laughing, and Mr Rennick clarifies, "That will also make sense once you're here."
"My daughter is currently looking so cute while she's sleeping on the floor of the suite the PRT is allowing us to use."
Jessica sighs, "Which budget is this going to be coming out of? And when can you be here?"
Rennick sighs, "I'm not sure, but certainly this afternoon, for the first trip. After that, I understand it should be instant."
Danny snorts, "It should be, Taylor was on one of Jupiter's moons earlier. Oh, that's a thought, has anyone been to the Parahuman Asylum in Rutland Vermont?"
Jessica just stares at the phone, that's a very odd question, "Mr Hebert, I can assure you that I know exactly where I am."
"I'm sorry, Mr Hebert has just vanished in a pillar of fire. He did mutter something like, 'Of course Hannah would have been there'"
"Hannah, Hannah… Do you think he meant her?"
"Almost certainly…"
There's a faint pop, and Danny says, "I certainly did."
Jessica jumps in shock and instinctively presses the panic button. In seconds the door opens and orderlies run in with a padded punching pad, restraints, and a syringe of sedative. At the same time Danny vanishes from view, and Jessica has a hard time even focusing on the idea he might be in the room with them.
The phone squarks, "Mr Hebert, what did you do?"
Danny says, "An uncharacteristically impulsive thing. Typified by the hormone driven impulses that young men in their late teens early 20's experience. Dr Yamada, I am terribly sorry for just popping in here like that. I should have spoken to the receptionist."
Jessica looks around, "Mr Hebert, where are you?"
"Given that I don't fancy being injected with Diazepam, even if you have some Flumazenil handy, I think I'll wait a few minutes so that everyone has a chance to calm down."
"Have you exhibited personality changes before?"
"Not before I got my powers, and this is the only one that I've noticed. But as it's my head that's been messed with, it's probably not wholly accurate."
"You seem to be rather knowledgeable about the internal workings of a hospital like this."
Rennick says, "That's one of those things that can't be spoken about over the phone."
Danny shakes his head unseen, "I'm just going to pop out to the grounds so I can freak out. Let's just say that I've just discovered something that I'd have rather not known, but I'm also glad I found out now."
Jessica rights her chair, then sits in it and cradles her head in her hands, "I need to do my morning rounds, after that I should have a couple of hours free."
At her desk, Hannah looks startled then puts her head in her hand and fake cries. Susan looks up at her, "What's wrong…", Hannah just shoves her at Danny's mind and Susan joins her before taking a deep breath and writing a letter to their contact at the FBI.
Dear Mr Smith,
Do you have any psychologists that you can assign to us on a permanent basis. We have just discovered that our powers [Classified Eye's Only] may cause subtle personality shifts. The role of this person would be to monitor us to detect any out of character actions and either veto that action or notify someone to help.
Regards,
Susan O'Donnell
Senior Investigator, Watchdog ENE
P.S. Be aware that there is a risk that whoever is assigned will end up with powers.
"Hannah, why do we have a contact with the FBI?"
"We're an internal intelligence agency. The Director set it up through the FBI rather than PRT HQ to avoid the politics. Technically, we are a PRT affiliated Parahuman Intelligence Organisation that comes under the direct command of the FBI. What that means in practice is anybody's guess, but she thinks that we effectively have two bosses, the FBI and the PRT, though in the event of a conflict of interests, the FBI has jurisdiction. It also means that they can, and probably will, send cases and information our way, as well as asking us to consult on cases inside our jurisdiction. I think she spent more than a few favours setting it up."
"Why set it up that way?"
"Tagg."
"I'm sorry?"
"Emily is a canny old bitch, and she saw the implications of Taylor laying eggs before anyone else. When she was setting it up, she said that we literally can't prosecute Taylor for anything. We can't give her a kill order, threaten her with the bird cage, or anything that would cause her to go underground. I've looked at some of the memories, and I have yet to find a hive that didn't have at least 50 members. Even that one was an anomaly, normally they have thousands of member, and they uses anything with a mouth and stomach as incubators for their young. What do you think would happen if we stopped caring about the rest of humanity? If they pushed so hard that we decided, fuck it and went undergound? I'll tell you what could happen, Taylor could lay hundreds of normal eggs a day, instead of only 10 or so of the sort we encountered. Functionally, Brockton Bay would cease being a city in around 10 days as the newborn xenomorphs gorged themselves on the readily available meat. Friends and family would be brought into the hive, lessoning our feelings of guilt over the situation. The government might try to nuke us, or they'll try to build a wall around the city. It won't work, as we'd just move somewhere else. At some point Taylor would lay a Queen, she wouldn't be able to help herself. Civilisation would probably last another year at most at that point."
"Hannah, you're scaring me."
"Good, you should be scared of that possibility. I'm scared of that possibility. That's why we're part of the FBI rather than the PRT. There's more checks and balances on the FBI than there are on the PRT. Simply because the public is scared of parahumans, so they gave our overseers far more power than they would if the PRT had normal policing duties."
"It sounds like you've thought about this a lot."
"I have, and I believe in the American People, in the laws of the land, and that the Statue of Liberty still means something. However, not sleeping leaves you far too much time to think."
Susan reaches over the desks and grasps Hannah's hand, "For what it's worth, most of the personnel in the PRT believe the same things you do. There's the odd human supremist that joins because some parahuman somewhere hurt someone they know, or possibly have read about, and they just want to show them what it's like on the other side of the coin."
"What about you?"
"My sister, she's parahuman, I joined to protect her. All she ever wanted to do is Ballet and Gymnastics, and getting powers ruined that. When I last spoke to her, she was talking about moving to Australia where parahuman employment laws are fairer. That was before the Simurgh."
"I'm truly sorry to hear that."
"Changing the subject, what is our mission goal, if we're part of the FBI."
Hannah leans her head back, and her voice sounds a little like Piggot's "To provide actionable intelligence on parahuman criminals and their organisations. To prevent parahuman criminals from disturbing civil order with their crimes."
"So this titbit of information could be something?" Susan turns up the volume on her computer and presses play.
"Hey, Hookwolf, do you think Purity will ever come back?"
Hookwolf laughs, "Sure she will, Kaiser has a hold over her. She'll slink back with her tail between her legs like the bitch she is."
Hannah nods, "Send it to Legend, subject line should be 'Shining a spotlight on flipping the bird'."
"Why not Armsmaster?"
Hannah looks at Susan until she blushes slightly, "Exactly."
Emily lays back on her bed, Dinah on one side, and her dialysis machine on the other. Gently she strokes Dinah's hair as she sleeps. Raising her other hand, she can see that it's still shaking even hours after her flashback. It's been years since she had anything more than anxiety or a panic attack, so she'll have to start leaving her gun locked up again. Of course, she also traumatised Dinah, as she was there and watching when it happened.
There's going to be a mandatory medical review, there always is. Even if there isn't, Emily has absolutely no doubt that Rebecca is going to throw a fit at her in retaliation for the eyes only classification. Then there's Dinah, she cried herself to sleep, and until her dialysis is finished, Emily can't even think of moving. What's giving her pause is the fact that Dinah was crying about her encounter with the E88, not the fact that Emily shot Amy.
An idle thought crosses her mind given this turn of events, "Huh, I wonder what the chances of me joining the hive are going to be."
"96.5%" Dinah responds sleepily before snuggling further into her side and blowing her nose on her top.
"That was rhetorical. You're supposed to be asleep."
The only thing she gets back is soft breathing as Dinah's gone back to sleep.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Carol juggles a baby carrier and her door key with skill rusty with disuse. As their door opens, she walks in and immediately Victoria starts to gush."Oh, she's such a cutie. Aren't you a cute little baby. Who's the mother?"
"I am."
"Oh, wow, just wait until Ames get's a look at you. You are going to have the best sisters ever. I can't believe that you decided to adopt again without telling me."
"While she's adopted, it was around 10 years ago now."
"No way! Uh huh, you're trying to have me on, she can't be more than 3 or 4 months old."
"She looked like she was 2 months when I picked her up."
Vicky scoots back from the baby carrier, "Wait, you're serious? This is Amy?"
"Uh huh."
"No Way! Uh uh, no way, that can't be Ames."
"Well, she did take a full magazine of 10mm fmj to the head, so I appreciate that she doesn't quite look the way you remembered her."
Vicky's voice climbs an octave, "Mum, she's a baby! If there's a cape out there that can do that to someone…"
Amy wakes up at the panic in Vicky's voice, "Gah. Gah goo."
"Oh sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. Please don't cry."
Amy shifts around a bit and realises that things feel a little too squishy down there, "Gah, gah." Why can't she say anything, oh yeah, babies can't talk, "Waaah!"
"No, no, stop crying. Please stop crying?"
Carol unceremoniously picks Amy up and hands her to Vicky, which Amy is absolutely certain is going to be a bad idea. It turns out to be a funny idea, as her sister just freezes and floats there with Amy in her arms while Carol goes to the car and gets the rest of the stuff.
When Carol comes back in she looks around for Vicky's phone and, finding it on the mantle piece, stops the recording before taking a photo of Vicky and sending the recording and photo to her sister, Sarah.
"Thank you for agreeing to babysit Amy for the next 3 days. By the smell of things she needs her nappy changed, so you can do it while I'm here, that way you can do it tomorrow. She should be ok with pullups the day after tomorrow, and back to her normal sarcastic self in a week."
Over the next 5 minutes, Amy is sure that if she could die of embarrassment, she would have done multiple times over. Even worse, it had to be done twice, as she didn't have bladder control yet. Then, to make matters worse, Carol showed Vicky how to prepare baby formula, test it, and finally, just shoved it in her mouth.
"This is so embarrassing!"
Surprisingly Taylor responds, "I know, that's why I spent so much time as a chest burster. On the bright side, you've got plenty of time to work out how to make the change consciously now."
"I hate you."
"No you don't, just be aware that when you sleep, you tend to shift back to your natural form. Of course, there's apparently also the times when you're dreaming and change, but that shouldn't be a problem for you yet."
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Taylor takes her phone outside and looks up at the sky. Yes she got a reaming for not stopping the girls from going ahead with their plan. However, she was also praised for intervening when she did, as well as ensuring that nobody died because of the girls. There was also the back handed complement due to the fact that Hannah and Susan were able to get the footage of the entire evening from one of the gang members. Glancing at her phone, she notes that Mars should be rising in a few minutes, though it will only be visible for around 45 minutes before the sun rises and makes it impossible to see. Heading back inside, and closing the door, she flames north to one of the hills that they passed during the road trip to visit the manned offices. Without the glare from the surrounding streetlights, more and more stars become visible as her human eyes adjust to the darkness. Rather surprisingly, she can still see the world around her, though it appears devoid of colour. Instead it appears to be painted in deeper shades of red that appear brighter or darker independently to the light that's shining on them.
Taylor's so fascinated by this, that she almost misses Mars in the sky. Flaming to the tiny red dot in the sky, she realises her mistake as she appears in space and the air is pulled violently out of her lungs. She has a moment to realise that Mars currently appears to be around the same size as the moon in the sky before she passes out, and naturally returns to her xenomorph queen form.
Queenie looks at the red planet in the distance. She certainly has the right idea, though mars is probably not that suitable. Europa on the other hand, water ice means oxygen, and she can sense the faint signals bouncing off of the planets orbiting Jupiter now she's away from earth. Flaming to the surface of Mars so that she has a solid surface to return to if she gets lost, Queenie gets her bearings and flames closer and closer to Jupiter. She's unable to find the right planet in the time she has available, so with the last of her energy she makes two more jumps, the first to the surface of the planet she did find, and the second back to her suite on earth. There she falls asleep on the floor while her body works to restore her oxygen reserves.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
"Dr Yamada, I have Deputy Director Rennick from PRT ENE HQ in Brockton Bay. He wishes to talk to you about an unscheduled visit."
Tiredly Jessica looks at her workload, "Put him through."
There's a click, "Good Morning, Rutland Parahuman Asylum, Vermont. Dr Yamada speaking."
There's a pause as Rennick actually processes what was said, "Dr Yamada, I'm sorry for calling you directly rather than going through our normal channels."
"Of course, what is so urgent it demands a phone call?"
"Director Piggot had a PTSD flashback and shot a young changer 10 times in the head. There were 3 children under the age of 13 that witnessed it, as well as a teenager, and of course the victim."
"The victim?"
"I am reading directly from the report here. She died, and she's currently growing up again."
"Right, I'm going to put that down as power bullshit and carry on. What is it that you need from me?"
"You're our only psychologist that is qualified to deal with parahuman children, so we need you to come down as soon as you're available and talk to the children that witnessed what happened. They were also involved in a fight with a local gang earlier in the evening. I'm worried that they're taking that harder than they have been the shooting they witnessed."
"What were they even doing being able to get into a situation like that?"
"I'm afraid that I can't talk about that over the phone. Plus, I don't think you'd believe me if I did tell you. One moment…"
Jessica yawns while she's waiting, she really needs to get her morning coffee.
"Miss Yamada, a Mr Hebert has just been shown into my office. His daughter is one of the people who witnessed the shooting. He is also a high level mover, who can transport other people as well. If you agree, we will pay for him to fly out to you, and then bring you back here."
"Are you sure you're you should be sharing his real name?"
"I'm just putting you on speaker."
Another voice calls out, "Good Morning Dr, I'm a Union man, and the only reason I'm not doing my day job is I got powers. I still need to pay the bills, as and when we get the house back anyway. If I can make a fair wage working taxi, then that's what I'll do. I can't use a secret identity if I want to be seen as a union man for the lobbyists."
Jessica shakes her head in confusion, "What about your friends and family, won't they be at risk?"
Danny starts laughing, and Mr Rennick clarifies, "That will also make sense once you're here."
"My daughter is currently looking so cute while she's sleeping on the floor of the suite the PRT is allowing us to use."
Jessica sighs, "Which budget is this going to be coming out of? And when can you be here?"
Rennick sighs, "I'm not sure, but certainly this afternoon, for the first trip. After that, I understand it should be instant."
Danny snorts, "It should be, Taylor was on one of Jupiter's moons earlier. Oh, that's a thought, has anyone been to the Parahuman Asylum in Rutland Vermont?"
Jessica just stares at the phone, that's a very odd question, "Mr Hebert, I can assure you that I know exactly where I am."
"I'm sorry, Mr Hebert has just vanished in a pillar of fire. He did mutter something like, 'Of course Hannah would have been there'"
"Hannah, Hannah… Do you think he meant her?"
"Almost certainly…"
There's a faint pop, and Danny says, "I certainly did."
Jessica jumps in shock and instinctively presses the panic button. In seconds the door opens and orderlies run in with a padded punching pad, restraints, and a syringe of sedative. At the same time Danny vanishes from view, and Jessica has a hard time even focusing on the idea he might be in the room with them.
The phone squarks, "Mr Hebert, what did you do?"
Danny says, "An uncharacteristically impulsive thing. Typified by the hormone driven impulses that young men in their late teens early 20's experience. Dr Yamada, I am terribly sorry for just popping in here like that. I should have spoken to the receptionist."
Jessica looks around, "Mr Hebert, where are you?"
"Given that I don't fancy being injected with Diazepam, even if you have some Flumazenil handy, I think I'll wait a few minutes so that everyone has a chance to calm down."
"Have you exhibited personality changes before?"
"Not before I got my powers, and this is the only one that I've noticed. But as it's my head that's been messed with, it's probably not wholly accurate."
"You seem to be rather knowledgeable about the internal workings of a hospital like this."
Rennick says, "That's one of those things that can't be spoken about over the phone."
Danny shakes his head unseen, "I'm just going to pop out to the grounds so I can freak out. Let's just say that I've just discovered something that I'd have rather not known, but I'm also glad I found out now."
Jessica rights her chair, then sits in it and cradles her head in her hands, "I need to do my morning rounds, after that I should have a couple of hours free."
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
At her desk, Hannah looks startled then puts her head in her hand and fake cries. Susan looks up at her, "What's wrong…", Hannah just shoves her at Danny's mind and Susan joins her before taking a deep breath and writing a letter to their contact at the FBI.
Dear Mr Smith,
Do you have any psychologists that you can assign to us on a permanent basis. We have just discovered that our powers [Classified Eye's Only] may cause subtle personality shifts. The role of this person would be to monitor us to detect any out of character actions and either veto that action or notify someone to help.
Regards,
Susan O'Donnell
Senior Investigator, Watchdog ENE
P.S. Be aware that there is a risk that whoever is assigned will end up with powers.
"Hannah, why do we have a contact with the FBI?"
"We're an internal intelligence agency. The Director set it up through the FBI rather than PRT HQ to avoid the politics. Technically, we are a PRT affiliated Parahuman Intelligence Organisation that comes under the direct command of the FBI. What that means in practice is anybody's guess, but she thinks that we effectively have two bosses, the FBI and the PRT, though in the event of a conflict of interests, the FBI has jurisdiction. It also means that they can, and probably will, send cases and information our way, as well as asking us to consult on cases inside our jurisdiction. I think she spent more than a few favours setting it up."
"Why set it up that way?"
"Tagg."
"I'm sorry?"
"Emily is a canny old bitch, and she saw the implications of Taylor laying eggs before anyone else. When she was setting it up, she said that we literally can't prosecute Taylor for anything. We can't give her a kill order, threaten her with the bird cage, or anything that would cause her to go underground. I've looked at some of the memories, and I have yet to find a hive that didn't have at least 50 members. Even that one was an anomaly, normally they have thousands of member, and they uses anything with a mouth and stomach as incubators for their young. What do you think would happen if we stopped caring about the rest of humanity? If they pushed so hard that we decided, fuck it and went undergound? I'll tell you what could happen, Taylor could lay hundreds of normal eggs a day, instead of only 10 or so of the sort we encountered. Functionally, Brockton Bay would cease being a city in around 10 days as the newborn xenomorphs gorged themselves on the readily available meat. Friends and family would be brought into the hive, lessoning our feelings of guilt over the situation. The government might try to nuke us, or they'll try to build a wall around the city. It won't work, as we'd just move somewhere else. At some point Taylor would lay a Queen, she wouldn't be able to help herself. Civilisation would probably last another year at most at that point."
"Hannah, you're scaring me."
"Good, you should be scared of that possibility. I'm scared of that possibility. That's why we're part of the FBI rather than the PRT. There's more checks and balances on the FBI than there are on the PRT. Simply because the public is scared of parahumans, so they gave our overseers far more power than they would if the PRT had normal policing duties."
"It sounds like you've thought about this a lot."
"I have, and I believe in the American People, in the laws of the land, and that the Statue of Liberty still means something. However, not sleeping leaves you far too much time to think."
Susan reaches over the desks and grasps Hannah's hand, "For what it's worth, most of the personnel in the PRT believe the same things you do. There's the odd human supremist that joins because some parahuman somewhere hurt someone they know, or possibly have read about, and they just want to show them what it's like on the other side of the coin."
"What about you?"
"My sister, she's parahuman, I joined to protect her. All she ever wanted to do is Ballet and Gymnastics, and getting powers ruined that. When I last spoke to her, she was talking about moving to Australia where parahuman employment laws are fairer. That was before the Simurgh."
"I'm truly sorry to hear that."
"Changing the subject, what is our mission goal, if we're part of the FBI."
Hannah leans her head back, and her voice sounds a little like Piggot's "To provide actionable intelligence on parahuman criminals and their organisations. To prevent parahuman criminals from disturbing civil order with their crimes."
"So this titbit of information could be something?" Susan turns up the volume on her computer and presses play.
"Hey, Hookwolf, do you think Purity will ever come back?"
Hookwolf laughs, "Sure she will, Kaiser has a hold over her. She'll slink back with her tail between her legs like the bitch she is."
Hannah nods, "Send it to Legend, subject line should be 'Shining a spotlight on flipping the bird'."
"Why not Armsmaster?"
Hannah looks at Susan until she blushes slightly, "Exactly."
Discovery - a day in the life
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
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Discovery – A Day in the Life
Agent Jon Franks sits down at his desk after his monthly briefing. At the top of his list of things to do is start screening assets for the new watchdog department that's been set up, FBIPHIA, to cover the PRT ENE area. Looking over the physical file he can see why the director jumped at the chance to have this facility under their umbrella, even with the ability for the PRT to pretty much poke their noses in at will.
They've got a Sherlock and Cassandra as their headliners, Miss Militia is transferring over to it, less directly useful but she can be used for visual surveillance easily enough, just need to ensure that she knows about the best production scopes and probably get the boffins to cook up a scope with a laser microphone attached. Then there's the goose.
A power granting shifter with a Ninja powerset, combined with a dual teleportation package. Reading further, it looks like their ancillary powers disrupt delicate electronics, well shit, they might have just found the perfect espionage operative if they get the right training. There's also a sealed presidential order to keep the goose on the good side of the USA.
As he continues to flick through the file, he comes across a note from the director that refers to a specific part of the analysis of the goose. Flicking back, he sees that it's talking about a hive mind between the goose and everyone they've granted powers to, along with unconfirmed speculation that they can refer to each other's memories. Well, that explains just why he was given this assignment rather than one of the more senior co-ordinators, that also means picking from the younger agents, or those who have seen less interesting stuff. Absolutely nobody that has been involved in wetwork, either aspect of it.
Jon closes the file and turns on the computer. After a couple of minutes, he's logged in and looking at his e-mail. With a sigh, he prints out an e-mail, a request for a temporary relocation to a field office, and a request for a psych asset. Shutting down the computer again, he places the print outs in the top of the file and heads back to his Director's office.
"Missy, if spring break finished on Friday, how comes you were handing in work for Dinah last week?"
Missy replies bitterly, "Our parents think it looks good for us to have extra curricular lessons. So they sign us up for language courses, this year it was French and art, because we share a border with Canada, and Doris saw an art exhibition when they were deciding what I should be signed up for. The last few years it was Spanish and other lessons."
"Who's Doris?"
"My mother, she's a Famous Fashion Designer, with capital letters, and has a successful chain of shops in New York, Washington DC, Hollywood, and London UK. She's always moaning that her Paris shop flopped."
"Shit girl, even I refer to the waste of space that birthed me as mum."
Missy can't help it, she giggles at the description, "Try to keep that language out of the school, as they will have you in detention for it."
"I can be good, scouts honour."
"What do you think of the Director?"
"Personally? I think she takes too much on herself. It's like she doesn't really trust anyone else to be able to do their jobs."
"Why do you think that?"
"I've been hanging around and I can turn invisible, just need to sit in a break room or the cafeteria for a couple of hours and listen to the gossip. Said gossip has been saying that Dinah is good for her, as it's made her give other people more work. Course, the same people are now happy that she's on medical leave. How are you getting on being part of the wards and part of watchdog?"
"It's been tough the last week, they all know that I have new powers. But I can't use them on patrol. We also all seem so young."
"Missy, that would be because we are young. Look, it's nice an all being able to see an adults point of view. But don't forget to be a teenager for a while."
Missy sags, "I'm not sure I know how."
"Well, to start with, you've got nothing going on after school. Why don't we skip out and explore the coast for a bit. See if we can find pirate caves."
"Huh?"
"You'll see, it'll be fun. And we'll be using our changer ability."
Missy tries very hard to pretend reluctance, "Ok, after school."
"Mum! What's going on?"
"Amy still needs to do to school," – Amy's head turns around sharply, porridge going everywhere – "so like normal, you'll have to take her."
"No! No no, no no no. I'm a baby I don't have the co-ordination to do school yet."
Vicky's head whips back to Amy, "You can talk?"
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I'm a just over a year old, of course I can talk. Can't walk yet though. Can't pop either for that matter."
Carol looks at Amy sternly, "No popping without an adult until you're older."
Vicky catches the corner of a smile as she turns back to her bag, when did her mum learn to smile?
"Morning everyone, where's Amy?" Tiredly, Mark Dallon walks into the kitchen and sits down in his normal chair.
Vicky quickly looks between Amy and her father before flying over and taking Amy out of her chair, "Hey Dad, this is Amy, she's having trouble eating her porridge, could you help her? While you're doing that what do you want for breakfast?"
Amy's about to protest when she notices her father's eyes look a little less dull as he expertly takes her in one hand.
"Porridge if your mum made a load, otherwise Muesli. Open up Amy, the choo choo train is coming. Shh, shh, chug, chug, chug chug, chug chug, Woo! Woo!"
Obediently Amy opens wide and then flushes bright red when a camera flash goes off.
Softly Carol says to Vicky, "I haven't seen your father that animated for years."
Vicky nods as she takes a ladle porridge and swirls some honey around it, "I know, and I've not seen you smile at Amy for about as long."
Carol turns to stare at Vicky's head as she takes her fathers breakfast and pill box over. Sure she had, she was happy when Amy…
Breakfast continues silently, only punctuated by the occasional baby noises that Mark makes while feeding Amy. What follows is possibly one of the most embarrassing days of Amy's life, as she's parked at the front of every class. Half her teachers pick her up and carry her around while presenting the class, the other half seem to just pretend she doesn't exist. Vicky's friends take turns pushing her around to her next class, and it's highly embarrassing when she falls asleep while someone is rocking the pushchair.
The two most embarrassing things are having to ask to be changed, and lunch time. Lunchtime deserves special mention because everyone takes a moment to coo at her. She can't even sarcastic herself some peace, as everyone says it's so adorable and cute.
"Thank you Stephen, I'll go check it out. Be discrete, as I don't think he's a threat."
"We will."
Taking her tea and a plate of biscuits out of the front door to the stairs that lead to the driveway, Danny is indeed just sitting there staring into the distance. She can see that Rachel is training or exercising her dogs off to one side. The big girl having relaxed in the week since she arrived here. Jessica sits down near Danny, but not crowding him as she continues to consider Rachel.
"You can sit closer if you want to talk, I'm just brooding."
Jessica moves her plate over and scoots into comfortable talking distance, "Do you mind if I ask what you're brooding about?"
"Not at all, I lost my job this morning. NEPEA-5 means it's too expensive to continue employing me. So I popped over to the PRT to see if they could use someone with my talents, and I heard Rennick talking to you, well his half of the conversation. I have no idea what came over me, but I then popped in to see him and offer my services. You know what happened after that."
"Why did you lose your job?"
A flat stone around the size of his hand just appears in Danny's hand, and he starts to carve it with a fingernail, "I can summon and banish things, levitate them, teleport, and I've got enhanced senses. There's literally nothing in the docks that my power can't be of some use with. Can't even do a janitors job, because I can clean a room better than a team of people with a single click of my fingers."
"I confess, I'm not really conversant with that law, it doesn't really affect us here."
Danny laughs bitterly, "It doesn't until it does. Hang around my daughter for long enough and you'll probably find yourself having to justify your own position. We have access to, ancestral memories. One of those memories is from a British Prescribing Psychiatrist named Vivian Granger. It's her memories I was using earlier when I realised what happened. I've also found out that I've got around a year before any physical indication that I was ever a man is gone."
"The design on the stone looks pretty."
"Thank you, I learnt how to whittle on flotsam in the 80's. Course, I used a knife then, but a lot of the dockers did that while we were waiting for the next ship to come in. Course, a few years later I showed a talent for administration and moved sideways. I met Annette at the local college while improving my qualifications, and we hit it off and got married. It's one of the good things about getting these powers from Taylor, my daughter, they're fixing my depression. We should have guessed they'd affect our brains more than that."
Jessica shakes her head and says softly, "All powers do that. Whether by changing your perception of the world, or providing a bandaid for trauma. I've spoken to hundreds of parahumans, and most of them have eventually opened up about what happened when they got powers. If you then look at the person and squint sideways you can see how that power could have been useful in the original situation. Whether to stop them getting into it in the first place, getting them out of it, or helping to resolve it. What they never do is actually fix the problem. There have been a few other power granters, the permanent ones always extract a price. Teacher's was, is, a master effect that leaves the recipients loyal to him even as the power fades to almost non-detectability. Every time he refreshes it, that loyalty grows, and the power fades faster. Augment could increase one aspect of you at the expense of another, increased hearing for decreased vision, better dexterity for reduced stamina. That sort of thing. Savant could make people into idiot Savant's."
Danny nods, "It makes sense, though it feels wrong for our situation. It still looks like your theory fits, as Taylor was socially ostracized due to a bullying campaign by her ex best friend. Friendless, powerless, and alone in a metal prison. She can now grant people powers, that granting brings them into her hive, where there can be no real secrets. But she can only lay female eggs…"
"Wrong how?"
"Her ancestral memories. There's too many of them, no other parahuman has ever received anything like that. There's also the fact that we're all still learning new things about her powers, and I don't just mean refining the power and coming up with new ways to use it. I mean like a new avenues of science type things."
"Are you sure you should be telling me this?"
"You're going to hear it later anyway, so why not."
"Normally it would be considered confidential information, and you're not my patient."
"Being part of a hive mind, the only privacy we get is from other people being respectful. Even then, you check in on other people, or they check in on you and you see what they're thinking about at the time. The Queen, as in ant, not royalty, can bring pressure on us to do something, but in the same way I could hold someone down until they comply. You're always never entirely alone, even when others are giving you privacy, you just learn to tune their voices out as background noise."
"To be honest, that sounds terrifying."
Danny shakes his head, "It really isn't. Anyway, I'm going to try something else that should be possible. My name is Daniel Hebert, I'll be back at 3pm. If you need me before then just call my name. In theory, I should be able to hear it."
The teacher looks at her, "Can I see your ID please?"
Emily's smile becomes more genuine as she fishes out her PRT ID, "Certainly, you can verify the ID over the phone if you wish."
The teacher takes the ID and glances at it, shifting it backwards and forwards to ensure the hologram is real.
"Thank you very much Miss Piggot, Dinah seems to have fit in well for her first day back in normal classes. She's also made friends with the new girl, a Miss Laborn, who transferred in from Winslow. Frankly, I'm surprised that the new girl was able to keep up given what I've heard about Winslow."
"There are some very bright children at that school. It's just a shame the area is in such bad decline. Anyway, thank you for looking after my ward, we have some shopping to do before we go home."
As they're walking back to the car, Dinah looks up at Emily, "Shopping?"
"Yes, your bedroom was my designated guest room. So you need a few things to make it yours."
"Great, where are we going?"
"Home Depot."
"Huh?"
"You'll see."
Agent Jon Franks sits down at his desk after his monthly briefing. At the top of his list of things to do is start screening assets for the new watchdog department that's been set up, FBIPHIA, to cover the PRT ENE area. Looking over the physical file he can see why the director jumped at the chance to have this facility under their umbrella, even with the ability for the PRT to pretty much poke their noses in at will.
They've got a Sherlock and Cassandra as their headliners, Miss Militia is transferring over to it, less directly useful but she can be used for visual surveillance easily enough, just need to ensure that she knows about the best production scopes and probably get the boffins to cook up a scope with a laser microphone attached. Then there's the goose.
A power granting shifter with a Ninja powerset, combined with a dual teleportation package. Reading further, it looks like their ancillary powers disrupt delicate electronics, well shit, they might have just found the perfect espionage operative if they get the right training. There's also a sealed presidential order to keep the goose on the good side of the USA.
As he continues to flick through the file, he comes across a note from the director that refers to a specific part of the analysis of the goose. Flicking back, he sees that it's talking about a hive mind between the goose and everyone they've granted powers to, along with unconfirmed speculation that they can refer to each other's memories. Well, that explains just why he was given this assignment rather than one of the more senior co-ordinators, that also means picking from the younger agents, or those who have seen less interesting stuff. Absolutely nobody that has been involved in wetwork, either aspect of it.
Jon closes the file and turns on the computer. After a couple of minutes, he's logged in and looking at his e-mail. With a sigh, he prints out an e-mail, a request for a temporary relocation to a field office, and a request for a psych asset. Shutting down the computer again, he places the print outs in the top of the file and heads back to his Director's office.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Aisha grumps as she follows Missy to Arcadia Middle School. It's on the same campus as Arcadia High, though in a separate building."Missy, if spring break finished on Friday, how comes you were handing in work for Dinah last week?"
Missy replies bitterly, "Our parents think it looks good for us to have extra curricular lessons. So they sign us up for language courses, this year it was French and art, because we share a border with Canada, and Doris saw an art exhibition when they were deciding what I should be signed up for. The last few years it was Spanish and other lessons."
"Who's Doris?"
"My mother, she's a Famous Fashion Designer, with capital letters, and has a successful chain of shops in New York, Washington DC, Hollywood, and London UK. She's always moaning that her Paris shop flopped."
"Shit girl, even I refer to the waste of space that birthed me as mum."
Missy can't help it, she giggles at the description, "Try to keep that language out of the school, as they will have you in detention for it."
"I can be good, scouts honour."
"What do you think of the Director?"
"Personally? I think she takes too much on herself. It's like she doesn't really trust anyone else to be able to do their jobs."
"Why do you think that?"
"I've been hanging around and I can turn invisible, just need to sit in a break room or the cafeteria for a couple of hours and listen to the gossip. Said gossip has been saying that Dinah is good for her, as it's made her give other people more work. Course, the same people are now happy that she's on medical leave. How are you getting on being part of the wards and part of watchdog?"
"It's been tough the last week, they all know that I have new powers. But I can't use them on patrol. We also all seem so young."
"Missy, that would be because we are young. Look, it's nice an all being able to see an adults point of view. But don't forget to be a teenager for a while."
Missy sags, "I'm not sure I know how."
"Well, to start with, you've got nothing going on after school. Why don't we skip out and explore the coast for a bit. See if we can find pirate caves."
"Huh?"
"You'll see, it'll be fun. And we'll be using our changer ability."
Missy tries very hard to pretend reluctance, "Ok, after school."
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Victoria stops as she enters the kitchen for breakfast, Amy has grown overnight and now looks almost a year old. To one side is a pushchair with a removable carrier, and Amy is currently sitting in a highchair with a look of concentration on her face while she tries to eat her porridge. What's caught her attention is her mother packing nappies, clothing, and baby food in her school backpack."Mum! What's going on?"
"Amy still needs to do to school," – Amy's head turns around sharply, porridge going everywhere – "so like normal, you'll have to take her."
"No! No no, no no no. I'm a baby I don't have the co-ordination to do school yet."
Vicky's head whips back to Amy, "You can talk?"
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I'm a just over a year old, of course I can talk. Can't walk yet though. Can't pop either for that matter."
Carol looks at Amy sternly, "No popping without an adult until you're older."
Vicky catches the corner of a smile as she turns back to her bag, when did her mum learn to smile?
"Morning everyone, where's Amy?" Tiredly, Mark Dallon walks into the kitchen and sits down in his normal chair.
Vicky quickly looks between Amy and her father before flying over and taking Amy out of her chair, "Hey Dad, this is Amy, she's having trouble eating her porridge, could you help her? While you're doing that what do you want for breakfast?"
Amy's about to protest when she notices her father's eyes look a little less dull as he expertly takes her in one hand.
"Porridge if your mum made a load, otherwise Muesli. Open up Amy, the choo choo train is coming. Shh, shh, chug, chug, chug chug, chug chug, Woo! Woo!"
Obediently Amy opens wide and then flushes bright red when a camera flash goes off.
Softly Carol says to Vicky, "I haven't seen your father that animated for years."
Vicky nods as she takes a ladle porridge and swirls some honey around it, "I know, and I've not seen you smile at Amy for about as long."
Carol turns to stare at Vicky's head as she takes her fathers breakfast and pill box over. Sure she had, she was happy when Amy…
Breakfast continues silently, only punctuated by the occasional baby noises that Mark makes while feeding Amy. What follows is possibly one of the most embarrassing days of Amy's life, as she's parked at the front of every class. Half her teachers pick her up and carry her around while presenting the class, the other half seem to just pretend she doesn't exist. Vicky's friends take turns pushing her around to her next class, and it's highly embarrassing when she falls asleep while someone is rocking the pushchair.
The two most embarrassing things are having to ask to be changed, and lunch time. Lunchtime deserves special mention because everyone takes a moment to coo at her. She can't even sarcastic herself some peace, as everyone says it's so adorable and cute.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Jessica is just mixing herself a cup of tea during her morning break when one of the orderlies stands next to her, "Dr Yamada, the man that appeared in your office is sitting on the steps outside staring at the horizon.""Thank you Stephen, I'll go check it out. Be discrete, as I don't think he's a threat."
"We will."
Taking her tea and a plate of biscuits out of the front door to the stairs that lead to the driveway, Danny is indeed just sitting there staring into the distance. She can see that Rachel is training or exercising her dogs off to one side. The big girl having relaxed in the week since she arrived here. Jessica sits down near Danny, but not crowding him as she continues to consider Rachel.
"You can sit closer if you want to talk, I'm just brooding."
Jessica moves her plate over and scoots into comfortable talking distance, "Do you mind if I ask what you're brooding about?"
"Not at all, I lost my job this morning. NEPEA-5 means it's too expensive to continue employing me. So I popped over to the PRT to see if they could use someone with my talents, and I heard Rennick talking to you, well his half of the conversation. I have no idea what came over me, but I then popped in to see him and offer my services. You know what happened after that."
"Why did you lose your job?"
A flat stone around the size of his hand just appears in Danny's hand, and he starts to carve it with a fingernail, "I can summon and banish things, levitate them, teleport, and I've got enhanced senses. There's literally nothing in the docks that my power can't be of some use with. Can't even do a janitors job, because I can clean a room better than a team of people with a single click of my fingers."
"I confess, I'm not really conversant with that law, it doesn't really affect us here."
Danny laughs bitterly, "It doesn't until it does. Hang around my daughter for long enough and you'll probably find yourself having to justify your own position. We have access to, ancestral memories. One of those memories is from a British Prescribing Psychiatrist named Vivian Granger. It's her memories I was using earlier when I realised what happened. I've also found out that I've got around a year before any physical indication that I was ever a man is gone."
"The design on the stone looks pretty."
"Thank you, I learnt how to whittle on flotsam in the 80's. Course, I used a knife then, but a lot of the dockers did that while we were waiting for the next ship to come in. Course, a few years later I showed a talent for administration and moved sideways. I met Annette at the local college while improving my qualifications, and we hit it off and got married. It's one of the good things about getting these powers from Taylor, my daughter, they're fixing my depression. We should have guessed they'd affect our brains more than that."
Jessica shakes her head and says softly, "All powers do that. Whether by changing your perception of the world, or providing a bandaid for trauma. I've spoken to hundreds of parahumans, and most of them have eventually opened up about what happened when they got powers. If you then look at the person and squint sideways you can see how that power could have been useful in the original situation. Whether to stop them getting into it in the first place, getting them out of it, or helping to resolve it. What they never do is actually fix the problem. There have been a few other power granters, the permanent ones always extract a price. Teacher's was, is, a master effect that leaves the recipients loyal to him even as the power fades to almost non-detectability. Every time he refreshes it, that loyalty grows, and the power fades faster. Augment could increase one aspect of you at the expense of another, increased hearing for decreased vision, better dexterity for reduced stamina. That sort of thing. Savant could make people into idiot Savant's."
Danny nods, "It makes sense, though it feels wrong for our situation. It still looks like your theory fits, as Taylor was socially ostracized due to a bullying campaign by her ex best friend. Friendless, powerless, and alone in a metal prison. She can now grant people powers, that granting brings them into her hive, where there can be no real secrets. But she can only lay female eggs…"
"Wrong how?"
"Her ancestral memories. There's too many of them, no other parahuman has ever received anything like that. There's also the fact that we're all still learning new things about her powers, and I don't just mean refining the power and coming up with new ways to use it. I mean like a new avenues of science type things."
"Are you sure you should be telling me this?"
"You're going to hear it later anyway, so why not."
"Normally it would be considered confidential information, and you're not my patient."
"Being part of a hive mind, the only privacy we get is from other people being respectful. Even then, you check in on other people, or they check in on you and you see what they're thinking about at the time. The Queen, as in ant, not royalty, can bring pressure on us to do something, but in the same way I could hold someone down until they comply. You're always never entirely alone, even when others are giving you privacy, you just learn to tune their voices out as background noise."
"To be honest, that sounds terrifying."
Danny shakes his head, "It really isn't. Anyway, I'm going to try something else that should be possible. My name is Daniel Hebert, I'll be back at 3pm. If you need me before then just call my name. In theory, I should be able to hear it."
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Emily waits outside the school, leaning on her walking stick. Today has been exhausting despite not being allowed into the office. She'd forgotten just how hard working on her mental health was. Spotting Dinah, she puts a smile on her face for the teacher accompanying her.The teacher looks at her, "Can I see your ID please?"
Emily's smile becomes more genuine as she fishes out her PRT ID, "Certainly, you can verify the ID over the phone if you wish."
The teacher takes the ID and glances at it, shifting it backwards and forwards to ensure the hologram is real.
"Thank you very much Miss Piggot, Dinah seems to have fit in well for her first day back in normal classes. She's also made friends with the new girl, a Miss Laborn, who transferred in from Winslow. Frankly, I'm surprised that the new girl was able to keep up given what I've heard about Winslow."
"There are some very bright children at that school. It's just a shame the area is in such bad decline. Anyway, thank you for looking after my ward, we have some shopping to do before we go home."
As they're walking back to the car, Dinah looks up at Emily, "Shopping?"
"Yes, your bedroom was my designated guest room. So you need a few things to make it yours."
"Great, where are we going?"
"Home Depot."
"Huh?"
"You'll see."
One-who-reads
Illuminatus
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Latest chapter is not linked.
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
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Fixed
The way I see it, you can't have eons of memories, along with a combined hundreds of years of non-xenomorph memories, both yautja and magical, without it affecting you. Especially given how small the hive is at the moment.
Hexcalibur
Getting sticky.
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Discovered this story and just finished reading.
Interesting story. I always found that the PRT and Protectorate got away with too much in canon. Glad their group will be more under the FBI.
Interesting story. I always found that the PRT and Protectorate got away with too much in canon. Glad their group will be more under the FBI.
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
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To my mind it doesn't make sense that absolutely everything would be passed through the PRT as soon as there was any parahuman involvement, as most of the time the crimes they commit are the same as the crimes that non-parahumans commit. The only difference is in what happens if you're trying to investigate a crime in progress, or the lair of a parahuman, especially a tinker.
Additionally, there's either far more parahumans around than the story would suggest, I'm thinking 1:1000 to 2:1000 population, or the PRT is a massive creature of bloated proportions. After all, at the beginning of worm there are around 67 parahumans in Brockton Bay, Detroit, which is a declining city has a population of 674,841, and that's also a port city, though inland compared to Brockton Bay. That makes 1:10,000 people a parahuman in the city known for having the highest per-capita number of parahumans. Even with the value in the wiki of 350,000 that's 1:5000, enough that police departments might, might, have a dedicated task force for them, but not enough to warrant an entire federal agency. The very fact that the PRT exists means that someone's been playing silly buggers with politics. Piggot looked at Taylor's powers and did some back of a fag packet brainstorming on all the ways it could be abused if the wrong people decided to play political football. After deciding she scared herself enough, she went with the other federal department.
Don't get me wrong, once you take into account the various containment zones, the PRT is worth its budget, but at that point they're not the parahuman police, instead they're a federal cleanup crew/spook squad that is primarily responsible for keeping known parahuman caused problems contained.
The other thing that hints that parahumans are far more common than the story suggests is NEPEA-5. Why the fuck does it exist if there are barely 300,000,000/5,000 = 60,000 parahumans in the entire country, and that's decades after the law was passed. So, no, I'm going with a far higher number of parahumans, as 1:4 women have had the wrong sort of traumatic experience, a significant proportion of those go on to develop PTSD. Hence, Sean, who as far as the dockworkers are concerned, has a built in tape measure and protractor. Of course, if he happens to practice with a rifle in one of the abandoned warehouses, just to keep his skills sharp you understand, they're not going to say anything. That's what I figure the majority of parahumans are doing, working jobs where their powers don't actually come into play. Much like Mutants in X-men. Suddenly the PRT makes more sense when instead of 60,000 parahumans, there's 600,000, 90% of which don't really use their powers for financial gain. For example, Doris the factory worker that's always asked to do the stock take because her power is the ability to know exactly how many of something there is in a given location. She then gets a bonus cash in hand so that they don't have to make it part of her job description. Sean gets called over by the surveyors to "check their numbers", for the same reason.
That ultimately means that the 60,000 parahumans that the story suggests are just the unlucky ones whose powers can't easily be used discretely.
Sorry for the ranty essay.
Discovery - It's still Monday
DarkPhoenixLady
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Discovery – It's still Monday
Going around Home Depot was an experience for Dinah, who had never been taken to a store like this. Her family tending to shop at Macey's or Sears when they're in New York for some event or another. The closest she remembers ever coming to paint was the little books with colours in them, and endless discussions about which colour is going to go with another colour. They'd then have decorators come in while she was at school.
Instead, they both walk around this massive warehouse with isles that even her dad could lay down width ways in. At that thought she starts to cry slightly, and Emily crouches down next to her.
"Are you ok?"
Sniffing, Dinah nods, "I'm ok, I just thought about the fact that Dad could lie down across this aisle without knocking the shelves."
"Then you remembered that he's in a coma?" – Dinah just nods – "We can do this another day if you'd like."
Dinah shakes her head, "No, I'm fine."
"If, you're sure. How about you help me by getting the paints off the shelves so that we can see what colours you like? Then we can buy some brushes and rollers, and maybe see if we can find some stencils you like too. We're also here for a desk and bookcase, so that you have somewhere for your schoolwork."
Dinah can't help it; she cheers right up and jumps up and down in excitement.
There's a flash of fire and Danny appears in Jessica's office, "It worked, I wasn't sure it would."
Jessica looks at Danny with furrowed eyebrows, "What worked?"
"When I gave you my name, I put a little bit of magic in it with the intention of wanting to hear you when you say that name."
"I'm sorry to seem ignorant, but magic?"
"Wherever these powers came from, that's what they called it. The specific magic I used for it is called House Elf Magic. Anyway, you called?"
"I've finished everything that one of the other Dr's couldn't handle, so we can go whenever you're ready."
Cheekily, Danny holds his elbow out, "Your wish is my command my lady."
Jessica laughs and shakes her head as she takes his elbow, and then they're engulfed in fire before appearing in the Foyer of the PRT ENE HQ.
"I'm surprised that you didn't take us further into the building."
"While you were working, I had a long talk with some friendly PRT personnel from security about where and when I was allowed to bring people into the building. Which amounts to, I'm not. Oh, when you're finished, do you fancy grabbing a cup of coffee in LA? Miss Militia remembers a lovely café there."
Jessica laughs good naturedly, "Not today, maybe some other time once we know each other better."
"Fair, well, I need to let the nice people in reception know that I've brought you in. Just call my name when you want to head back to the hospital."
Jessica isn't sure whether Danny was being sarcastic or not, either way she signs in and makes her way up to the Deputy Director's office.
After a few minutes she's let into his office and invited to take a seat.
"Good afternoon, Dr Yamada, thank you for taking the time to come here today."
Jessica waves her hand, "It's far less of an issue when there's apparently no travel time involved. I do have to ask, why am I meeting you rather than going to the consultation room?"
Rennick stands up and goes over to a dual lock safe, and unlocks it with a combination and a key, before taking out a file, "I've had these files moved up here for the moment, as it seems that I'm needing to refer to them a lot in the Directors absence."
"But she's only been gone less than a day."
"Indeed. I personally don't agree with her decision to create a watchdog ENE and assign all of the personnel affected there. However, the PRT no longer has the authority to close it down or reassign members. We do, however, have the relevant files, which you will probably need to read before your consultations."
"Why? I don't normally need to know any details about the people that I'm counselling."
"You don't, but you also normally have access to their files during the consultation. These are classified eyes only, and I don't have the authority to declassify them despite how awkward it makes things."
"I see." She then spends the next hour flicking through the files without reading a word. She has never read a file before the first meeting, and she's not going to start now. Instead, she considers what Danny told her on the steps while he was brooding. All four of these children are linked in a hive mind, 5 if she includes Taylor. A hive mind that Danny is also part of, and if this file is to be believed, so are Miss Militia and Susan O'Donnell.
With a snap, she closes the file and places it on the deputy directors' desk, "Deputy Director, I think I've read everything I need to."
"Good, I'll have someone escort you to the consulting room."
Jessica shakes her head, "I need to speak to Miss O'Donnell and Miss Militia first. Daniel Hebert."
"What? You don't normally do that."
There's a soft pop as Danny appears, "You're right, but equally I'm also not normally given a file and told to read it. Mr Hebert, do you know if Miss O'Donnell or Miss Militia are available to talk?"
Danny's eyes lose focus, and he cocks his head to one side, "They're in the office at the moment."
"Would you mind escorting me there please?"
Danny smiles and holds out a hand, "Certainly."
Rennick finally gets his wits back together, "Dr Yamada, I must protest."
Jessica takes Danny's hand and they both disappear in a pillar of fire.
"Look James, I called you because I'm in over my head here. I'm really not leadership material… Yes, yes, I agree, but the new Watchdog falls under the FBI, something to do with Internal Affairs not being able to do their jobs if the people they're investigating can just fire them… No, I can't change the classification on that file for the same reason. It's part of the Watchdog department rather than the PRT… No, I'm not going to photocopy it, Armsmaster has doohickies on all of them that can somehow detect when classified documents are copied… I agree Director, they'd be better off under PRT jurisdiction than anywhere else, as we're the only ones that really understand what Parahumans are capable of."
Taylor smiles when he hangs up, and nudges both Susan and Hannah with the memory.
Whistling she enjoys her lunch and then flames herself to IO in order to continue her search for Europa. It would be much easier if she could see visible light, but at least she can now home in on another moon. It takes her the rest of the day with frequent rest stops to replenish her oxygen levels, but eventually she does find Europa. Once she does, she finds it has high enough oxygen levels to sustain her. That certainly makes things easier, and she should bring some sort of pressure sensor to see if it's suitable for human habitation. With a sense of satisfaction, she returns to earth.
Back in the PRT building, she makes her way to Armsmaster's lab.
"Hello, are you in Armsmaster?"
When there's no answer after 5 minutes she assumes he's on patrol.
Stabbing a button on his console, he growls, "I'm going out on patrol."
"Er, you're not scheduled for a patrol sir."
"Stress relief."
"I understand, I'll log you as out on patrol."
"Thank you."
With his auto armourer, getting suited up only takes him 4 minutes and 32.4 seconds, he might be able to get that down to 4 minutes in the future, but for now he grabs one of his general-purpose halberds and the collapsible halberd. Placing his helmet on his head before he unlocks his door, he heads out on the coast road to the north, up towards Camden and then Belfast. The purr of the engine soothing to his mind.
He's just riding along The Bluff, one of the backroads that takes him from Northport to Belfast rather than following the I1 all the way. Of to one side, he sees some strange creatures playing in the ocean. Pulling his motorcycle over he dismounts and takes a pair of high precision binoculars, with multiple optical zoom modes, and a digital zoom he can use on his HUD. When he realises that they're xenomorphs, he pulls out a flare gun and fires it over their heads.
He then speaks into the load hailer attached to his bike, "You two xenomorphs, come to the shore now."
Missy and Aisha share what passes for a glance for xenomorphs before popping to the electrical beacon on the cliff.
"What do you two think you are doing out here? Do your guardians know you're here?"
Missy and Aisha both share another glance.
"Come on, human both of you, and explain yourselves."
Aisha changes into her human form, "Look, we're just playing find the pirates, and exploring the coast? Is that so bad?"
"What if you were trapped in a cave, or your guardian worried about you?"
Aisha stares at him as though his just said something in a foreign language, "To start with, we can teleport. Secondly, ain't none of my guardians ever cared where I was, as long as I was home for dinner and homework."
"And if you got knocked unconscious?"
"How exactly would we get knocked unconscious? It's not as if we're particularly fragile."
"Rockfalls, some of the cliffs around here are unstable, there's a town a little further north that only exists on maps older than 20 years ago due to the cliffs collapsing."
"So, assuming that none of our senses pick it up, and we can't teleport out when we do finally notice it, and it knocks us out. Then what? Taylor's been exploring Jupiter's moons looking for Europa, if she can survive out there, I think I can survive long enough to come around under a rockfall that hasn't killed me."
"And if it does kill you?"
"Then I turn into a baby, and get rescued by one of the others."
"GAH! Why won't you just stop backtalking me?"
"Look, Armsmaster, what's actually digging you. As it seems to me that you need a convenient target to shout at. Tell you what, let's go to that arcade in Miami that L did business in once, I'm sure there'll be plenty of stuff for you to beat the crap out of. Missy follow me?"
Armsmaster tries to stop her from touching him, he really did. But she's a young girl, and he's a middle-aged man in power armour, who has trained to gain the advantage in a fight, not to dodge an opponent completely. A flash of fire later, and they're stood on Kendall strip outside Arcade Odyssey. On his HUD, a multitude of indicators flash to show one delicate tinker-tech system or another has gone offline. Only the things that barely count at tinker-tech are still functioning. Fortunately, the servos in his armour and power supply are two such systems. There's another flash of fire and his HUD fuzzes for a second, and Missy appears. Together they walk into the Arcade, a black girl and xenomorph, and head to the change desk. There they get fifty dollars' worth of rolled quarters.
Aisha thinks at Missy, "Do you think they have a game that uses a halberd or sword?"
Missy shakes her head, "Probably, split up and call if we find one?"
"Sure, I'll get some more spending money while I'm at it."
"Aisha, I'm not comfortable with you doing that, just go with what we've got."
"Sure, we can do that."
Outside Armsmaster finally pulls his attention away from the hundreds of hours of work that is currently dysfunctional in his power armour and to the fact that he's currently standing alone in, Miami Florida… Mentally he upgrades their mover rating, and pauses as he registers that Aisha said Taylor had been looking for Jupiter's moon Europa. Blinks a couple of times, and then marches into hell. As he opens the door, the cacophony of different sounds and flashing lights hits him like a punch to the gut and he tries to use his eye tracking to enable the noise cancellation. When it fails, he lifts a panel on his arm and uses his backup touchpad to do the same thing. When the sounds die down to only what he's looking at, he breathes a sigh of relief and starts to look for the two children.
It takes him far longer than he's happy with, and when he does find them, Aisha is waving a sword at a screen ineffectually. The other xenomorph nudges her with its head, and she turns around.
"Oh, hi Armsmaster, could you show me how to do this properly, as I've never used a sword before."
He's not exactly sure how, but somehow he ends up with the sword in hand facing the game as the next wave of fruit comes towards him. Hefting the blade a couple of times, he swipes the 3d fruit out of the sky. Idly noting that they must be using some special mask, as the fruit actually looks like it's heading for him rather than the 2d it looked from the side.
The next thing he knows, he's receiving a call from the Deputy Director, and he realises that there is a crowd around him watching.
"Armsmaster, while I appreciate that you are doing a great job with PR at the moment. You were supposed to be on duty 30 minutes ago, and in Maine rather than Florida."
"I will be there as soon as I can be, Armsmaster out."
To the sound of much disappointment, he turns from the game, not realising that someone had left a roll of quarters with his name on them, that people had been feeding in whenever he ran low on credits. It takes him another 30 minutes to realise that he should just phone Hannah.
"Hannah, would you happen to know where Aisha and the other xenomorph are?"
"Yes, they're both at Missy's house doing their homework, why?"
"They left me in Miami."
"They tried to attract your attention, but you couldn't hear them over the background noise, and well, you're wearing armour."
"Understood, would you ask one of them to take me back to my bike please?"
Hannah laughs, "Certainly. Did you have fun?"
Colin stops for a second and thinks about it, "I did surprisingly."
"Good, then their aim was achieved. Aisha should be outside now."
Once he gets outside, Aisha walks up to him, "Ready?"
"I am."
In a burst of fire, they appear beside his motorcycle, and it appears as though it's rained while he was in Miami.
"Thank you, I'll ride back now."
"I could flame you and your bike."
"Thank you for the offer, however I already have 175 hours of work in repairing my armour after this side trip. I do not wish to add another hundred or so."
Aisha winces, "Sorry about that. I didn't realise your equipment would be so sensitive. We do have designs for computers and stuff that weren't affected by flame travel. It's all part of the hive mind, along with designs for FTL ships that can traverse the galaxy in around 2 years. Of course, you probably won't want it, as it means becoming a woman. But just letting you know, it's there."
Before he can respond, Aisha is gone.
Going around Home Depot was an experience for Dinah, who had never been taken to a store like this. Her family tending to shop at Macey's or Sears when they're in New York for some event or another. The closest she remembers ever coming to paint was the little books with colours in them, and endless discussions about which colour is going to go with another colour. They'd then have decorators come in while she was at school.
Instead, they both walk around this massive warehouse with isles that even her dad could lay down width ways in. At that thought she starts to cry slightly, and Emily crouches down next to her.
"Are you ok?"
Sniffing, Dinah nods, "I'm ok, I just thought about the fact that Dad could lie down across this aisle without knocking the shelves."
"Then you remembered that he's in a coma?" – Dinah just nods – "We can do this another day if you'd like."
Dinah shakes her head, "No, I'm fine."
"If, you're sure. How about you help me by getting the paints off the shelves so that we can see what colours you like? Then we can buy some brushes and rollers, and maybe see if we can find some stencils you like too. We're also here for a desk and bookcase, so that you have somewhere for your schoolwork."
Dinah can't help it; she cheers right up and jumps up and down in excitement.
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"Daniel Hebert?"There's a flash of fire and Danny appears in Jessica's office, "It worked, I wasn't sure it would."
Jessica looks at Danny with furrowed eyebrows, "What worked?"
"When I gave you my name, I put a little bit of magic in it with the intention of wanting to hear you when you say that name."
"I'm sorry to seem ignorant, but magic?"
"Wherever these powers came from, that's what they called it. The specific magic I used for it is called House Elf Magic. Anyway, you called?"
"I've finished everything that one of the other Dr's couldn't handle, so we can go whenever you're ready."
Cheekily, Danny holds his elbow out, "Your wish is my command my lady."
Jessica laughs and shakes her head as she takes his elbow, and then they're engulfed in fire before appearing in the Foyer of the PRT ENE HQ.
"I'm surprised that you didn't take us further into the building."
"While you were working, I had a long talk with some friendly PRT personnel from security about where and when I was allowed to bring people into the building. Which amounts to, I'm not. Oh, when you're finished, do you fancy grabbing a cup of coffee in LA? Miss Militia remembers a lovely café there."
Jessica laughs good naturedly, "Not today, maybe some other time once we know each other better."
"Fair, well, I need to let the nice people in reception know that I've brought you in. Just call my name when you want to head back to the hospital."
Jessica isn't sure whether Danny was being sarcastic or not, either way she signs in and makes her way up to the Deputy Director's office.
After a few minutes she's let into his office and invited to take a seat.
"Good afternoon, Dr Yamada, thank you for taking the time to come here today."
Jessica waves her hand, "It's far less of an issue when there's apparently no travel time involved. I do have to ask, why am I meeting you rather than going to the consultation room?"
Rennick stands up and goes over to a dual lock safe, and unlocks it with a combination and a key, before taking out a file, "I've had these files moved up here for the moment, as it seems that I'm needing to refer to them a lot in the Directors absence."
"But she's only been gone less than a day."
"Indeed. I personally don't agree with her decision to create a watchdog ENE and assign all of the personnel affected there. However, the PRT no longer has the authority to close it down or reassign members. We do, however, have the relevant files, which you will probably need to read before your consultations."
"Why? I don't normally need to know any details about the people that I'm counselling."
"You don't, but you also normally have access to their files during the consultation. These are classified eyes only, and I don't have the authority to declassify them despite how awkward it makes things."
"I see." She then spends the next hour flicking through the files without reading a word. She has never read a file before the first meeting, and she's not going to start now. Instead, she considers what Danny told her on the steps while he was brooding. All four of these children are linked in a hive mind, 5 if she includes Taylor. A hive mind that Danny is also part of, and if this file is to be believed, so are Miss Militia and Susan O'Donnell.
With a snap, she closes the file and places it on the deputy directors' desk, "Deputy Director, I think I've read everything I need to."
"Good, I'll have someone escort you to the consulting room."
Jessica shakes her head, "I need to speak to Miss O'Donnell and Miss Militia first. Daniel Hebert."
"What? You don't normally do that."
There's a soft pop as Danny appears, "You're right, but equally I'm also not normally given a file and told to read it. Mr Hebert, do you know if Miss O'Donnell or Miss Militia are available to talk?"
Danny's eyes lose focus, and he cocks his head to one side, "They're in the office at the moment."
"Would you mind escorting me there please?"
Danny smiles and holds out a hand, "Certainly."
Rennick finally gets his wits back together, "Dr Yamada, I must protest."
Jessica takes Danny's hand and they both disappear in a pillar of fire.
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Taylor stretches languorously as she wakes up from a deep, rejuvenating sleep. Looking around she realises that she can't see the visual spectrum, and so transforms before going in hunt of breakfast. Glancing at the clock on the way out, she mentally amends that to a late lunch. Almost reflexively, she also checks in on the members of her hive, working, bored at school, and brooding with deep thoughts. The last one is annoyed at school, but then she's a baby. On her way to the cafeteria, she hears the Deputy Directors voice from one of the rooms she's passing. Curious she quickly sticks her head in and realises that his office must be directly above this room."Look James, I called you because I'm in over my head here. I'm really not leadership material… Yes, yes, I agree, but the new Watchdog falls under the FBI, something to do with Internal Affairs not being able to do their jobs if the people they're investigating can just fire them… No, I can't change the classification on that file for the same reason. It's part of the Watchdog department rather than the PRT… No, I'm not going to photocopy it, Armsmaster has doohickies on all of them that can somehow detect when classified documents are copied… I agree Director, they'd be better off under PRT jurisdiction than anywhere else, as we're the only ones that really understand what Parahumans are capable of."
Taylor smiles when he hangs up, and nudges both Susan and Hannah with the memory.
Whistling she enjoys her lunch and then flames herself to IO in order to continue her search for Europa. It would be much easier if she could see visible light, but at least she can now home in on another moon. It takes her the rest of the day with frequent rest stops to replenish her oxygen levels, but eventually she does find Europa. Once she does, she finds it has high enough oxygen levels to sustain her. That certainly makes things easier, and she should bring some sort of pressure sensor to see if it's suitable for human habitation. With a sense of satisfaction, she returns to earth.
Back in the PRT building, she makes her way to Armsmaster's lab.
"Hello, are you in Armsmaster?"
When there's no answer after 5 minutes she assumes he's on patrol.
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Armsmaster throws his especially ruggedised tablet across the room and screams in frustration. Why on earth are they keeping Vista in the wards while Missy is joining Watchdog. They're the same person. It doesn't make sense. Surely it would be better to transfer both to watchdog like they did with Hannah and Miss Militia. But no, they had to go and make his life harder by making his most effective Ward part-time. She's experienced, young, photogenic, and has a power that is both flashy and subtle when needed.Stabbing a button on his console, he growls, "I'm going out on patrol."
"Er, you're not scheduled for a patrol sir."
"Stress relief."
"I understand, I'll log you as out on patrol."
"Thank you."
With his auto armourer, getting suited up only takes him 4 minutes and 32.4 seconds, he might be able to get that down to 4 minutes in the future, but for now he grabs one of his general-purpose halberds and the collapsible halberd. Placing his helmet on his head before he unlocks his door, he heads out on the coast road to the north, up towards Camden and then Belfast. The purr of the engine soothing to his mind.
He's just riding along The Bluff, one of the backroads that takes him from Northport to Belfast rather than following the I1 all the way. Of to one side, he sees some strange creatures playing in the ocean. Pulling his motorcycle over he dismounts and takes a pair of high precision binoculars, with multiple optical zoom modes, and a digital zoom he can use on his HUD. When he realises that they're xenomorphs, he pulls out a flare gun and fires it over their heads.
He then speaks into the load hailer attached to his bike, "You two xenomorphs, come to the shore now."
Missy and Aisha share what passes for a glance for xenomorphs before popping to the electrical beacon on the cliff.
"What do you two think you are doing out here? Do your guardians know you're here?"
Missy and Aisha both share another glance.
"Come on, human both of you, and explain yourselves."
Aisha changes into her human form, "Look, we're just playing find the pirates, and exploring the coast? Is that so bad?"
"What if you were trapped in a cave, or your guardian worried about you?"
Aisha stares at him as though his just said something in a foreign language, "To start with, we can teleport. Secondly, ain't none of my guardians ever cared where I was, as long as I was home for dinner and homework."
"And if you got knocked unconscious?"
"How exactly would we get knocked unconscious? It's not as if we're particularly fragile."
"Rockfalls, some of the cliffs around here are unstable, there's a town a little further north that only exists on maps older than 20 years ago due to the cliffs collapsing."
"So, assuming that none of our senses pick it up, and we can't teleport out when we do finally notice it, and it knocks us out. Then what? Taylor's been exploring Jupiter's moons looking for Europa, if she can survive out there, I think I can survive long enough to come around under a rockfall that hasn't killed me."
"And if it does kill you?"
"Then I turn into a baby, and get rescued by one of the others."
"GAH! Why won't you just stop backtalking me?"
"Look, Armsmaster, what's actually digging you. As it seems to me that you need a convenient target to shout at. Tell you what, let's go to that arcade in Miami that L did business in once, I'm sure there'll be plenty of stuff for you to beat the crap out of. Missy follow me?"
Armsmaster tries to stop her from touching him, he really did. But she's a young girl, and he's a middle-aged man in power armour, who has trained to gain the advantage in a fight, not to dodge an opponent completely. A flash of fire later, and they're stood on Kendall strip outside Arcade Odyssey. On his HUD, a multitude of indicators flash to show one delicate tinker-tech system or another has gone offline. Only the things that barely count at tinker-tech are still functioning. Fortunately, the servos in his armour and power supply are two such systems. There's another flash of fire and his HUD fuzzes for a second, and Missy appears. Together they walk into the Arcade, a black girl and xenomorph, and head to the change desk. There they get fifty dollars' worth of rolled quarters.
Aisha thinks at Missy, "Do you think they have a game that uses a halberd or sword?"
Missy shakes her head, "Probably, split up and call if we find one?"
"Sure, I'll get some more spending money while I'm at it."
"Aisha, I'm not comfortable with you doing that, just go with what we've got."
"Sure, we can do that."
Outside Armsmaster finally pulls his attention away from the hundreds of hours of work that is currently dysfunctional in his power armour and to the fact that he's currently standing alone in, Miami Florida… Mentally he upgrades their mover rating, and pauses as he registers that Aisha said Taylor had been looking for Jupiter's moon Europa. Blinks a couple of times, and then marches into hell. As he opens the door, the cacophony of different sounds and flashing lights hits him like a punch to the gut and he tries to use his eye tracking to enable the noise cancellation. When it fails, he lifts a panel on his arm and uses his backup touchpad to do the same thing. When the sounds die down to only what he's looking at, he breathes a sigh of relief and starts to look for the two children.
It takes him far longer than he's happy with, and when he does find them, Aisha is waving a sword at a screen ineffectually. The other xenomorph nudges her with its head, and she turns around.
"Oh, hi Armsmaster, could you show me how to do this properly, as I've never used a sword before."
He's not exactly sure how, but somehow he ends up with the sword in hand facing the game as the next wave of fruit comes towards him. Hefting the blade a couple of times, he swipes the 3d fruit out of the sky. Idly noting that they must be using some special mask, as the fruit actually looks like it's heading for him rather than the 2d it looked from the side.
The next thing he knows, he's receiving a call from the Deputy Director, and he realises that there is a crowd around him watching.
"Armsmaster, while I appreciate that you are doing a great job with PR at the moment. You were supposed to be on duty 30 minutes ago, and in Maine rather than Florida."
"I will be there as soon as I can be, Armsmaster out."
To the sound of much disappointment, he turns from the game, not realising that someone had left a roll of quarters with his name on them, that people had been feeding in whenever he ran low on credits. It takes him another 30 minutes to realise that he should just phone Hannah.
"Hannah, would you happen to know where Aisha and the other xenomorph are?"
"Yes, they're both at Missy's house doing their homework, why?"
"They left me in Miami."
"They tried to attract your attention, but you couldn't hear them over the background noise, and well, you're wearing armour."
"Understood, would you ask one of them to take me back to my bike please?"
Hannah laughs, "Certainly. Did you have fun?"
Colin stops for a second and thinks about it, "I did surprisingly."
"Good, then their aim was achieved. Aisha should be outside now."
Once he gets outside, Aisha walks up to him, "Ready?"
"I am."
In a burst of fire, they appear beside his motorcycle, and it appears as though it's rained while he was in Miami.
"Thank you, I'll ride back now."
"I could flame you and your bike."
"Thank you for the offer, however I already have 175 hours of work in repairing my armour after this side trip. I do not wish to add another hundred or so."
Aisha winces, "Sorry about that. I didn't realise your equipment would be so sensitive. We do have designs for computers and stuff that weren't affected by flame travel. It's all part of the hive mind, along with designs for FTL ships that can traverse the galaxy in around 2 years. Of course, you probably won't want it, as it means becoming a woman. But just letting you know, it's there."
Before he can respond, Aisha is gone.
Hexcalibur
Getting sticky.
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- 654
Is it just sensitive electronics or it's tinkertech that had problems with them? I would have thought that armor suit meant to be used in battle would be hardened (electronically).
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
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Yes. And the hardening only works against emp. It's why all the bugs were found.
Aganippe
Getting sticky.
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kinda hard to harden against an effect that collapses transistors and diodes by physically removing the doping of the semiconductor substrate..
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
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There's also a specific thing about tinkertech...
Mastersgt
Well worn.
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Still waiting for the eventual situation where they add someone with unique biology to the Hive, gaining those abilities... (like a Case-53)
Or, more specifically, I wanna see if Amy can alter the biology of a Xenomorph, then have those changes be available to the Hive as they are biological in nature... If so, then Danny should not need to worry as much, as I could see Amy being able to just make him Male... Maybe even directly adjust the Symbiote inside him so he no longer needs to worry about becoming a Woman at all.
Or, more specifically, I wanna see if Amy can alter the biology of a Xenomorph, then have those changes be available to the Hive as they are biological in nature... If so, then Danny should not need to worry as much, as I could see Amy being able to just make him Male... Maybe even directly adjust the Symbiote inside him so he no longer needs to worry about becoming a Woman at all.
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
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It magically propagates natural abilities to the rest of the hive. Case 53's are anything but natural. If they some how managed to infect a shard, that would be a different kettle of apples. Of course, it could also be said to be comparing fish and oranges, as shards aren't inherently magical, while these Xenomorphs are, because of Arry. Equally Shards aren't biological, so. you'll have to decide if they're just shooting eggs in a barrel, or instead breaking fish to make an omllette
Mastersgt
Well worn.
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I was under the Impression Case-53's were usually cases of the Shards being damaged, not able to keep people human, and then defaulting them to a body they know, like one of the past aliens that they had been connected to... Like with Newter, his body being from a past cycle.
Though that does leave the question up in the air regarding Amy... Maybe they only incorporate new abilities to the Hive when they are first changed? So maybe she would need to alter an egg first, then once that egg/Hugger has bonded with someone, then the abilities join the Hive? Or that the ability would have to belong to the person being bonded to... Which would be more dificult, as they would need to coordinate that, and most new Hive members have been accidental.
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
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With the full DNA or whatever they use for biological encoding, or just a facsimile that will fall apart if the shard is dethatched.
sinepost
Experienced.
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Rule 7- Necromancy
Armsmaster: Wait, no, come back...
Breakdown_Brkdwn
Know what you're doing yet?
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Discovery - FBI
DarkPhoenixLady
Know what you're doing yet?
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Discovery – FBI
It's a few days later, after Susan and Hannah have finally finished all the initial paperwork for their new department, that they're looking through their leads.
"How do you want to do this?"
Hannah leans back in her chair, "I think we want to prioritise Coil, as everything that Prospector has said suggests he's a thinker of some description. I could check the area that he's rumoured to control and record licence plates for a couple of days."
Susan pulls up a map on her computer, "That's a large area, I don't think you could cover all of it. It's also in the Commercial District, which means the only sightlines are down the roads."
"I know what you're thinking, and I can't help thinking that we're going about this wrong. But I don't know the right way to do it."
"Well, we can't exactly ask one of the kids to sniff around as they're in school, Amy isn't in watchdog, and Taylor is off near Jupiter, so out of range for direct thoughts."
"How about we actually just wander around the area and see if anything looks out of the ordinary."
Susan shakes her head, "It probably won't help. However, it will give us a lay of the land and maybe we can find some contacts in the area."
"It's funny, in the protectorate, we had our contacts but they were always things we cultivated to keep tabs on known gangs and locations. I've got quite a few around the Docks and downtown coastal area, as that's where the ABB and E88 are. Even some in the southern commercial district, again E88. That being said, it's just occurred to me that we can go invisible. Lisa, could you come to the office when you're able to please?"
"Grr, sure. What's up?"
Susan smiles, "We're going to wander around Coils area, and we'd like you to invisibly join us."
"I can do that, any reason?"
"Seeing if we can locate any stashes or places where his mercenaries frequent."
There's a flash of fire and Lisa is standing there, "Right, so how are we getting there?"
"That was quick."
"It's Coil, the bastard that gave me a 9mm interview. Yours was much politer, and ironically harder to refuse."
Nearly half an hour later, the three of them get out of the car. Though to both Hannah and Susan, Lisa appears to be washed out.
"Lisa, are you sure you're invisible?"
Lisa walks up to a pedestrian and waves her hand in front of their face, "Yes I'm sure."
Over the next hour they walk around the area, and past the same construction site 6 times.
"There's something odd about that construction site. I'm not sure what, but my powers says it's hotter than it should be. Which implies that there is something causing that heat. And now I'm thinking that I need to make a Yautja bio-mask. What the hell power? I'm not a tinker. Of course it also wants a colony assistance tool and the wrist computer to go with them. But, yes, this is probably worth looking into."
Hannah frowns, "You sound as if your power is sentient."
Lisa grouses, "Well, it's more that it's super good at inferring things, so when I look at that spot, I get everything from a budding volcano to an underground lair or metro vent. Which given we don't have a metro in this city… Then I wonder how I could find out more, and before I joined the hive I'd have expected to spot vantage points, people I could talk to, and ingress points where I would be undetected by most forms of surveillance."
"Any other changes that have happened?"
"Yeah, people are even grosser than before. I did not need two different medical degrees in my head. Did you know that Henry was a Dentist? Neither did I until I saw someone wiggle their jaw and my power suggested they have toothache, an abscess, TJD, or were just stretching. Instead of just pointing out their lack of dental hygiene, it's also pointing out just how bad it is. Oh, and I also want to make a sterilisation beam so that everyone can have clean and healthy teeth please."
Susan shudders, "I can't imagine what that must be like."
"No need to imagine, I can pipe it straight into your head."
"I think I'll pass on that."
"Don't worry, you'll be getting the full treatment sooner or later, I just asked Dinah."
"You bitch!"
Lisa sticks her tongue out and runs, invisibly, down the road as Susan follows.
Dragon's voice calls from a console that's just out of sight of the chamber, "Colin, what are you doing?"
"I'm looking at a parahuman artifact that we were given at the time of the incident that led to Miss Militia being in M/S."
"Colin, I was under the impression that no investigation could be done on that artifact until the testers finally arrived, and all of the equipment has been air-gapped and checked thoroughly."
Reluctantly, Armsmaster presses the button to close the shutter on the viewing window, "You're right. It's just something that Al said that has me wondering if it would be worth becoming a case 62."
"Colin, you can talk to me about it, you know that don't you?"
Armsmaster sits down at his workbench, and takes his helmet off. As Colin places the helmet on it's stand, he looks at the back of his armour that's open on the bench, then over towards the sketches he's been making over on his desk. After a couple of minutes he takes one of his stress balls and throws it against a wall as hard as he can. On impact it shatters into pieces in a most satisfying way, before falling to the floor. Turning back to the screen on his workbench, he runs his fingers through his hair, "I wish I could Dragon, I wish I could. But as long as you're here remotely I can't, not about this stuff. You're the only one that really gets me, and I can really talk about stuff to. But the director classified the information eyes only, and it's no longer under PRT jurisdiction either, so we can't unclassify it."
"You could talk to Dr Yamada about it."
"I wish I could, but I need to talk to someone that understands me, that understands this." He waves his hand over his armour, "I need to talk to you."
"Would it help if I sent a suit down?"
Colin shakes his head, "No, even those are remote controlled. It's just, everything's changing, and I've been given an opportunity to take my tinkering to the next level. But that means more changes."
Over the next hour, Dragon helps Colin navigate his meltdown, all the while being unable to talk about the underlying cause of the problem.
As he does, Imelda Rossner, the recently graduated FBI psychologist, shakes her head, "Well Jon, now that we're here am I going to find out why I'm on permanent assignment here rather than a junior on a profiling team?"
Jon walks over to the chairs and pulls them out until they bump against each other, "Hrumph, what did they do, clean out a supply closet for us? At least neither of us are particularly big. As for your question, it's time to stow anything you don't need walking around, and then we're off to Watchdog ENE."
As she starts emptying her bag into the drawers, Imelda complains, "Jon, that's not helpful."
"I know, but it's all you're going to get until we know this room is secure, or we're in a secure location."
It doesn't take long before the two of them have left the building once more, and are walking the mile and a half to the offices, gamely following the Garmin satnav, while trying to get a feel for the local area. The only thing they note on this walk, is that nobody bunches up. Even at the crosswalks they are given a healthy amount of space, as is everyone else. This is in stark contrast to the couple of busses they see pass, where there seems to be no spreading out. After a few minutes of trying to find the entrance to the offices, Jon finally gives up and calls the office with his mobile phone.
A couple of minutes later, Susan opens the downstairs door and walks out from behind a badly placed rotating ad board at the edge of the Walgreens pharmacy, and the two of them troop up the narrow stairs to the office space. Once they reach the top of the stairs, Jon pauses in surprise at the large pallet of wood samples sitting in the corner of the landing area.
Susan turns back for a moment, "Come on through, it's still a bit basic, but at least there's plenty of room here."
Jon looks over from the pallet and starts to walk into the main office area with a grumbled, "Teleporter, right. Forgot about that."
Susan nods, "Indeed. They're samples that we're going to be using for wand making, though Queenie is currently busy out by Jupiter, so we're waiting for her to get back before starting."
Imelda frowns, "Do you believe that your powers are magical then?"
Susan laughs as she leads the way into the smaller office that she's claimed with Hannah, "Not at all, I know that they're magical. Hannah, the FBI are here."
Hannah looks up from her computer, "So I see," she snaps her fingers, and a couple of comfortable office chairs appear beside the desk, "take a seat. I'm Hannah Washington, aka Miss Militia, the lead parahuman on this taskforce. Susan O'Donnell is our PRT Liaison, and head of the department. Not that we can really call it a department yet, with only two adult members."
Jon pokes one of the chairs experimentally, before sitting down, Imelda following his lead, "Well, I'm Agent Jon Franks, and this is Profiler Imelda Rossner. Are these projections?"
Susan laughs, "Nope, those are from storeroom 3 at the PRT HQ. Tea, coffee?"
Imelda sighs, "Jon, am I going to find out what's going on now? And coffee please."
Jon nods, "Coffee for me too please. I've been informed by head office," he blinks a couple of times as two steaming mugs of coffee, and a pot of cream appear on the nearby desk, "that these offices are to be considered secure. I've not yet seen the original files, as they are under an eyes only classification. Though, from my understanding, their actual classification isn't actually that high."
Hannah nods, "PRT level 5, so Senior Protectorate, and Wards identity cleared PRT staff, or equivalent."
Imelda asks, "What do those different classifications mean. Sorry, I only graduated last week, and I was expecting a junior position."
Susan waves her off, "It's no trouble, 'eyes only' is a storage classification, that means that it cannot be stored on any digital medium, so hard copy only. PRT levels 1-4 are all Top Secret, I don't know their exact legal classification as I'm only cleared for Secret classifications. 5 and 6 are both Secret, while 7-10 are Confidential. Further levels are all differing levels of unclassified information."
Imelda glances at Jon before turning back to Susan, "Thank you. Though I'm unsure why I've been assigned to this department."
Jon coughs, "Ah, yes. Before I continue, is Miss Willborne available?"
Imelda watches as Hannah's eyes unfocus for a moment, and then jumps when a plume of fire appears beside her. When it clears, a young, blond, woman is standing next to her, "Hello Miss Rossner, I'm Lisa Willborne, and the secondary reason you're here. Your primary purpose is actually your original career as a psychologist. No, don't worry, none of us are like that. In theory, we're all trained psychologists, but using somebody elses memories is not generally considered to be a legally recognised qualification. Oh, and don't worry, we have nothing to do with Victor from the E88 either, so your hard earned skills are safe from us. No, I believe the important part of your qualifications is your training in gender dysphoria…"
Everyone jumps as Hannah slams her hand on the desk, "Tattletale, enough. Miss Rossner, please forgive Tattletale, she's a parahuman in addition to being a case 62 and she hasn't had an opportunity to show off her parahuman ability for a couple of weeks now."
Lisa folds her arms and pouts, "Fine, you're here partly because I'm a high level thinker that is basically Sherlock Holmes on steroids. But I wasn't wrong about the primary reason being the fact you're a trained psychologist, and our granted powers are skewing our thoughts slightly, with one hive member also going through a sex change as part of it. Which is also why they picked you, rather than one of the men who scored better in your graduating class."
Jon looks at her, mouth agape, "How did you know all of that?"
Lisa just looks at him, "What part of high level thinker did you miss? Before this, I would have claimed to be psychic, but Hannah would just set you straight if I did. My power allows me to take disparate information and draw conclusions from it. Anything from your dental hygiene, based on the way your teeth and jaw look, yours is ok, but you need to floss more, and you have a cavity forming on your L2 molar. To your computer password. And that was before I got access to the memories of a prescribing psychologist, a dentist, and…"
"Lisa…" Hannah warns, "you're fugueing again."
Jon coughs, "Right, yes, Miss Willborne has covered the salient points of your position. What she didn't cover is the fact she's one of the under age members of watchdog ENE, and is only working with the department full time because she's passed her GED. The other full time, under age member is Miss Hebert, who is apparently near Jupiter at the moment. At this point, I think we should take a break while Miss O'Donnell and I do the handover for the physical files."
Susan nods, "We can do that, I'll flame us there once you've finished your coffee. Leave any electronics here, as I'll be cleaning the room before we start the handover."
Jon nods, before handing his phones to Imelda.
It's a few days later, after Susan and Hannah have finally finished all the initial paperwork for their new department, that they're looking through their leads.
"How do you want to do this?"
Hannah leans back in her chair, "I think we want to prioritise Coil, as everything that Prospector has said suggests he's a thinker of some description. I could check the area that he's rumoured to control and record licence plates for a couple of days."
Susan pulls up a map on her computer, "That's a large area, I don't think you could cover all of it. It's also in the Commercial District, which means the only sightlines are down the roads."
"I know what you're thinking, and I can't help thinking that we're going about this wrong. But I don't know the right way to do it."
"Well, we can't exactly ask one of the kids to sniff around as they're in school, Amy isn't in watchdog, and Taylor is off near Jupiter, so out of range for direct thoughts."
"How about we actually just wander around the area and see if anything looks out of the ordinary."
Susan shakes her head, "It probably won't help. However, it will give us a lay of the land and maybe we can find some contacts in the area."
"It's funny, in the protectorate, we had our contacts but they were always things we cultivated to keep tabs on known gangs and locations. I've got quite a few around the Docks and downtown coastal area, as that's where the ABB and E88 are. Even some in the southern commercial district, again E88. That being said, it's just occurred to me that we can go invisible. Lisa, could you come to the office when you're able to please?"
"Grr, sure. What's up?"
Susan smiles, "We're going to wander around Coils area, and we'd like you to invisibly join us."
"I can do that, any reason?"
"Seeing if we can locate any stashes or places where his mercenaries frequent."
There's a flash of fire and Lisa is standing there, "Right, so how are we getting there?"
"That was quick."
"It's Coil, the bastard that gave me a 9mm interview. Yours was much politer, and ironically harder to refuse."
Nearly half an hour later, the three of them get out of the car. Though to both Hannah and Susan, Lisa appears to be washed out.
"Lisa, are you sure you're invisible?"
Lisa walks up to a pedestrian and waves her hand in front of their face, "Yes I'm sure."
Over the next hour they walk around the area, and past the same construction site 6 times.
"There's something odd about that construction site. I'm not sure what, but my powers says it's hotter than it should be. Which implies that there is something causing that heat. And now I'm thinking that I need to make a Yautja bio-mask. What the hell power? I'm not a tinker. Of course it also wants a colony assistance tool and the wrist computer to go with them. But, yes, this is probably worth looking into."
Hannah frowns, "You sound as if your power is sentient."
Lisa grouses, "Well, it's more that it's super good at inferring things, so when I look at that spot, I get everything from a budding volcano to an underground lair or metro vent. Which given we don't have a metro in this city… Then I wonder how I could find out more, and before I joined the hive I'd have expected to spot vantage points, people I could talk to, and ingress points where I would be undetected by most forms of surveillance."
"Any other changes that have happened?"
"Yeah, people are even grosser than before. I did not need two different medical degrees in my head. Did you know that Henry was a Dentist? Neither did I until I saw someone wiggle their jaw and my power suggested they have toothache, an abscess, TJD, or were just stretching. Instead of just pointing out their lack of dental hygiene, it's also pointing out just how bad it is. Oh, and I also want to make a sterilisation beam so that everyone can have clean and healthy teeth please."
Susan shudders, "I can't imagine what that must be like."
"No need to imagine, I can pipe it straight into your head."
"I think I'll pass on that."
"Don't worry, you'll be getting the full treatment sooner or later, I just asked Dinah."
"You bitch!"
Lisa sticks her tongue out and runs, invisibly, down the road as Susan follows.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Armsmaster looks through the viewing window at the egg Taylor placed into the safe over a week ago.Dragon's voice calls from a console that's just out of sight of the chamber, "Colin, what are you doing?"
"I'm looking at a parahuman artifact that we were given at the time of the incident that led to Miss Militia being in M/S."
"Colin, I was under the impression that no investigation could be done on that artifact until the testers finally arrived, and all of the equipment has been air-gapped and checked thoroughly."
Reluctantly, Armsmaster presses the button to close the shutter on the viewing window, "You're right. It's just something that Al said that has me wondering if it would be worth becoming a case 62."
"Colin, you can talk to me about it, you know that don't you?"
Armsmaster sits down at his workbench, and takes his helmet off. As Colin places the helmet on it's stand, he looks at the back of his armour that's open on the bench, then over towards the sketches he's been making over on his desk. After a couple of minutes he takes one of his stress balls and throws it against a wall as hard as he can. On impact it shatters into pieces in a most satisfying way, before falling to the floor. Turning back to the screen on his workbench, he runs his fingers through his hair, "I wish I could Dragon, I wish I could. But as long as you're here remotely I can't, not about this stuff. You're the only one that really gets me, and I can really talk about stuff to. But the director classified the information eyes only, and it's no longer under PRT jurisdiction either, so we can't unclassify it."
"You could talk to Dr Yamada about it."
"I wish I could, but I need to talk to someone that understands me, that understands this." He waves his hand over his armour, "I need to talk to you."
"Would it help if I sent a suit down?"
Colin shakes his head, "No, even those are remote controlled. It's just, everything's changing, and I've been given an opportunity to take my tinkering to the next level. But that means more changes."
Over the next hour, Dragon helps Colin navigate his meltdown, all the while being unable to talk about the underlying cause of the problem.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Taylor jumps high into space above Europa for the 50th time today, as she scans around for the source of the rumbling she felt just before she jumped. Just as she's passed the apojove of her jump she catches a faint plume of heat coming into view from the horizon. With a pop of displaced water ice, she appears in an active plume of rapidly freezing water. Pushing herself to the edge of the plume, she elf pops to the surface before crawling into the hole the plume originates from, towards the liquid ocean below, magic and biology allowing her to breathe the unoxygenated water as if she was in the ocean on earth. Her journey down the plume conduit takes her several days, after the initial rush to stay ahead of the rapidly freezing cap at the surface. Driven by her instincts, she knows that the centre of this moon will be a perfect place to carve out a laying chamber.═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Jon Franks looks around the tiny office that the two of them have been assigned in City Hall. Already situated are two desks, back to back, with cheap wheelie chairs and an FBI issue secure filing cabinet. Pervading the entire room is that new paint smell, hinting at the fact the room wasn't originally a two tone blue.As he does, Imelda Rossner, the recently graduated FBI psychologist, shakes her head, "Well Jon, now that we're here am I going to find out why I'm on permanent assignment here rather than a junior on a profiling team?"
Jon walks over to the chairs and pulls them out until they bump against each other, "Hrumph, what did they do, clean out a supply closet for us? At least neither of us are particularly big. As for your question, it's time to stow anything you don't need walking around, and then we're off to Watchdog ENE."
As she starts emptying her bag into the drawers, Imelda complains, "Jon, that's not helpful."
"I know, but it's all you're going to get until we know this room is secure, or we're in a secure location."
It doesn't take long before the two of them have left the building once more, and are walking the mile and a half to the offices, gamely following the Garmin satnav, while trying to get a feel for the local area. The only thing they note on this walk, is that nobody bunches up. Even at the crosswalks they are given a healthy amount of space, as is everyone else. This is in stark contrast to the couple of busses they see pass, where there seems to be no spreading out. After a few minutes of trying to find the entrance to the offices, Jon finally gives up and calls the office with his mobile phone.
A couple of minutes later, Susan opens the downstairs door and walks out from behind a badly placed rotating ad board at the edge of the Walgreens pharmacy, and the two of them troop up the narrow stairs to the office space. Once they reach the top of the stairs, Jon pauses in surprise at the large pallet of wood samples sitting in the corner of the landing area.
Susan turns back for a moment, "Come on through, it's still a bit basic, but at least there's plenty of room here."
Jon looks over from the pallet and starts to walk into the main office area with a grumbled, "Teleporter, right. Forgot about that."
Susan nods, "Indeed. They're samples that we're going to be using for wand making, though Queenie is currently busy out by Jupiter, so we're waiting for her to get back before starting."
Imelda frowns, "Do you believe that your powers are magical then?"
Susan laughs as she leads the way into the smaller office that she's claimed with Hannah, "Not at all, I know that they're magical. Hannah, the FBI are here."
Hannah looks up from her computer, "So I see," she snaps her fingers, and a couple of comfortable office chairs appear beside the desk, "take a seat. I'm Hannah Washington, aka Miss Militia, the lead parahuman on this taskforce. Susan O'Donnell is our PRT Liaison, and head of the department. Not that we can really call it a department yet, with only two adult members."
Jon pokes one of the chairs experimentally, before sitting down, Imelda following his lead, "Well, I'm Agent Jon Franks, and this is Profiler Imelda Rossner. Are these projections?"
Susan laughs, "Nope, those are from storeroom 3 at the PRT HQ. Tea, coffee?"
Imelda sighs, "Jon, am I going to find out what's going on now? And coffee please."
Jon nods, "Coffee for me too please. I've been informed by head office," he blinks a couple of times as two steaming mugs of coffee, and a pot of cream appear on the nearby desk, "that these offices are to be considered secure. I've not yet seen the original files, as they are under an eyes only classification. Though, from my understanding, their actual classification isn't actually that high."
Hannah nods, "PRT level 5, so Senior Protectorate, and Wards identity cleared PRT staff, or equivalent."
Imelda asks, "What do those different classifications mean. Sorry, I only graduated last week, and I was expecting a junior position."
Susan waves her off, "It's no trouble, 'eyes only' is a storage classification, that means that it cannot be stored on any digital medium, so hard copy only. PRT levels 1-4 are all Top Secret, I don't know their exact legal classification as I'm only cleared for Secret classifications. 5 and 6 are both Secret, while 7-10 are Confidential. Further levels are all differing levels of unclassified information."
Imelda glances at Jon before turning back to Susan, "Thank you. Though I'm unsure why I've been assigned to this department."
Jon coughs, "Ah, yes. Before I continue, is Miss Willborne available?"
Imelda watches as Hannah's eyes unfocus for a moment, and then jumps when a plume of fire appears beside her. When it clears, a young, blond, woman is standing next to her, "Hello Miss Rossner, I'm Lisa Willborne, and the secondary reason you're here. Your primary purpose is actually your original career as a psychologist. No, don't worry, none of us are like that. In theory, we're all trained psychologists, but using somebody elses memories is not generally considered to be a legally recognised qualification. Oh, and don't worry, we have nothing to do with Victor from the E88 either, so your hard earned skills are safe from us. No, I believe the important part of your qualifications is your training in gender dysphoria…"
Everyone jumps as Hannah slams her hand on the desk, "Tattletale, enough. Miss Rossner, please forgive Tattletale, she's a parahuman in addition to being a case 62 and she hasn't had an opportunity to show off her parahuman ability for a couple of weeks now."
Lisa folds her arms and pouts, "Fine, you're here partly because I'm a high level thinker that is basically Sherlock Holmes on steroids. But I wasn't wrong about the primary reason being the fact you're a trained psychologist, and our granted powers are skewing our thoughts slightly, with one hive member also going through a sex change as part of it. Which is also why they picked you, rather than one of the men who scored better in your graduating class."
Jon looks at her, mouth agape, "How did you know all of that?"
Lisa just looks at him, "What part of high level thinker did you miss? Before this, I would have claimed to be psychic, but Hannah would just set you straight if I did. My power allows me to take disparate information and draw conclusions from it. Anything from your dental hygiene, based on the way your teeth and jaw look, yours is ok, but you need to floss more, and you have a cavity forming on your L2 molar. To your computer password. And that was before I got access to the memories of a prescribing psychologist, a dentist, and…"
"Lisa…" Hannah warns, "you're fugueing again."
Jon coughs, "Right, yes, Miss Willborne has covered the salient points of your position. What she didn't cover is the fact she's one of the under age members of watchdog ENE, and is only working with the department full time because she's passed her GED. The other full time, under age member is Miss Hebert, who is apparently near Jupiter at the moment. At this point, I think we should take a break while Miss O'Donnell and I do the handover for the physical files."
Susan nods, "We can do that, I'll flame us there once you've finished your coffee. Leave any electronics here, as I'll be cleaning the room before we start the handover."
Jon nods, before handing his phones to Imelda.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
In one long running timeline, Coil is greeting the Travellers as they arrive at his base. In the other, Thomas Calvert is sat at a hot desk in the PRT HQ, going over secure paperwork that they want him to consult on. Just as the vault door starts to close, his timelines split off into infinity before closing down to the one where he's doing the paperwork. Angerly, he swipes his laptop off the desk, into the wall before slamming his head into the desk while swearing up a storm. 36 hours down the drain, 36 hours from just before he called Accord to finalise their deal, to having the Travellers safely secured in his base, all gone.