causing a deep fracture that allowed a large pocket of natural gas to escape under pressure to the surface
Snerk. Did they seriously use the "gas leak" explosion? As part of an actual government cover-up?!
Outside dozens more insectoid robots, indistinguishable from real dragonflies, flew hither and yon, interacting with the world without comment or notice.
I
figured it was her doing somehow!
"Cool," she muttered. "I've never really spent any time looking at insects, but their biology is really neat. Their eyes are way better than I'd have expected..."
Either Amy is great at coverups or that one's legit (but probably QA's doing this time).
I suspect both of them probably have lots of spy drones out and about, and I can see Taylor being amused at making her tech versions of QA's method of choice.
Also, she's doing a quite effective impression of "Big Sister" on at least her town and possibly the planet, given her comment about "someone using her technology in Nevada." Good thing she's friendly...
"None," she replied, shaking her head. Putting the tablet down she added, "An excellent and plausible cover story."
"It's bullshit!"
Everyone looked at Rebecca again.
Well, she's not wrong. Too bad she's the next incarnation of Void Cowboy.
"Them?" Paul asked mildly. "Who is them? I thought we were them."
"No, we're us," David commented, smirking visibly. "They're them."
"Are you sure?" Contessa asked, her eyes glinting with humor.
"If we're us and they're them..." Paul mused, thoughtfully. "I don't know. Maybe some of us are some of them?"
"If even one of us is one of them, it raised the possibility that all of us might be..."
"All of them?" Contessa tilted her head and looked interested.
"SHUT UP YOU IDIOTS!" Rebecca screamed, slamming her hand on the table as she utterly lost her cool.
I feel like this was cribbed from a bad movie somewhere...
Some super weapon they invented using the Tinker they have, something they militarized and are keeping quiet. I knew they had a Tinker!
Has she
considered the implication of gravity control? Hell, the fact that they
can realize the implications is a sign that it's not a Tinker, since those can only do that sort of thing for very specific components...
Huh, that could be part of the issue. She refuses to believe that it's all actual tech outgrowth because in her experience a lot of their schizo-tech is all vastly different methods of achieving similar effects, so the idea of getting multiple effects out of one system may just not occur to her.
The other woman reached up and lowered her hat slightly, shading her eyes. Paul could almost swear he heard a faint rattle. He most assuredly heard David muffle a very slight snicker. "Cannot predict now," Contessa said calmly.
Rebecca clenched her fists.
"Path to finding out who designed the weapon." She sounded annoyed.
"Outlook not so good."
"You're not taking this seriously!"
"Very doubtful," Contessa replied cheerfully as she got up, slipping something round into her pocket.
Oh holy crap. She's just blatantly using a freaking magic 8 ball at this point and not even
trying to be subtle!
"Fuck me, Carol, what the hell have you done?"
I really loved that whole section. The fallout from this is going to be memorable, and it was also really fun reading that.
"He only shouted a little," Danny grinned. "Either he's getting used to you or you're losing your touch."
"Better bump it up a notch then," she giggled.
I have a suspicion she actually will...
"Apparently we've got yet another subsidiary company now..."
#FirstWorldProblems!
The pinprick of silver light flickered, as the optronic nodule seemed to somehow unfold in several directions at once, while not actually getting any larger from the point of view of normal three dimensional space. The flickering sped up, while the entire room very gently hummed with energy, the corners darkening strangely. She could feel odd things happening to local space-time.
"Cool," the girl whispered, smiling widely as everything proceeded to plan.
"Taylor? Are you down there invoking forces beyond comprehension again?" her father's voice called from upstairs.
That description is creepy as f--- but also epic. How do you even think of these things?
The completely blase response from Danny is also enough to make me laugh on its own.
Also, from context, her little cube gave at least a
noticeable upgrade to QA. Which says very interesting things about either the efficiency of her stuff or that of the Shards.
"Remember it's a school day tomorrow," he replied, sounding tired. "And eldritch energies tend to make me have strange dreams."
That sort of line by all rights should be from the introduction to The Mummy MMLCXIV or whatever number they're up to these days, not a fluffy story about taking over the world through SCIENCE!...
