[HALP] me! (WORM quest)

Sunday, the seventh of November twenty-ten is here. And you now have two Parahumans to work with!





*** Previously, on '[HALP] Me!' ***

I wake up. Different. Something is wrong with my vision, something is wrong with my power. My limbs are both missing and there at the same time… Wait. I can move my vision around without moving my eyes? Or my head? It's really dark in here, so I attempt to get up.

Against common sense and all expectations, it actually works. Feet! Hands! Limbs! When? How?! Even in the dimness of the temporary workshop, they look wrong, somehow. Too small and too… squishy? What?

I stumble out of the 'lab' doorway and into the brighter living area. The equipment is untouched, everything looks to be in the proper place. Power is still on, given the humming of the refrigerator, although that sounds wrong, somehow. Lower-pitched, maybe?

Dirty full-length mirror next to the airbed, and a shaft of early-morning sunlight next to it. Handy, let's see what we… what the hell? That's … that's me! I'm human again! And… a woman? No, a girl. But an older one. Mid-teens, maybe?

Is this what I looked like, before?

Stepping forwards into the light, I notice that while I could easily pass for normal, there are some things that aren't right. At all.

First, I have no hair. I have a hair-style, though. Kind of a longer rough pageboy cut, but it's solid. Er, one-piece. There's plenty of surface detail but no strands. Actually, I look almost like a flexible statue. Perfect eyes, eyelashes, even - but no pupils, or iris for that matter. A nose but no real nostrils. Wait.. I'm not breathing! Crap! I guess I can't swallow either.. I don't need to, now?

I move closer to the mirror to look into my mouth, at least I have teeth… when the shaft of sunlight goes through my head. It doesn't blind me, in fact I can look right at the sun. It doesn't hurt at all. I reflexively moved my head to see it, but I don't need to.

I choose to move my viewpoint to where my neck is, looking back into the mirror. But I can still see the sun a little. It's almost like my 'center of vision' is the same as before but my side-vision is everywhere. 360 degrees.

Pale lavender, translucent but not fully transparent. My whole body is made out of this… stuff. Almost gelatin. I see there aren't any bubbles. Shit. I'm even more alien than before. But I have the right shape! And hands! This is confusing. I feel bad about everything and good about everything at the same time.

I could cover up and look almost normal. Almost. Clothes! I don't have any. And given how, uh, detailed my body shape is… I'll need some. Clothes… Armor. Tinkering! A dozen designs come to me from nowhere. I have hands now but nothing to write on. Crap!

This. This isn't anything like my old power. This is like a real Tinker power! The designs are weird, though. They look old-fashioned. Well, between really old-fashioned and kind of old-fashioned. Everything should work fine, though. And I can use small tools now, this is great!

I don't remember being this smart. In fact I don't even know how I know all these new words I'm thinking. Is it that my power is finally working right? What even happened? Wait a minute… the light beam from the broken ceiling shoots through my head again. No brain. No organs at all.

I'm thinking with my entire body now. I'm literally all-brain. Of course!

The first thing I need to do is protect my… everything. I'm the opposite of bulletproof now. And no one needs to know what I really look like. Armor. Doesn't even have to be good, as long as it covers me completely. This is going to be great!

Just as soon as I think of a better name. Oh, and I should check to make sure I'm not breathing through my skin, first. Yeah, this is strange. But I can work with this!

*** A bit less previously, on '[HALP] Me!' ***

You have a difficult time deciding what to do with all this extra Mass. The Americas would be a good fit for the amount you have, but Africa would make everything nice and contiguous… You can't decide but you need to. And soon. Not only are you extremely uncomfortable, the Himalayas are having structural integrity problems, and you wanted to eat them later.

Hmm. Technically, instead of deciding where to put this Mass on Earth… The Americas wouldn't be connected fully in any case. You might as well test using the surface of the Moon.

How are you going to do this? Do you just throw Mass at the moon and hope it lands properly? That doesn't sound right. You search your feelings (and memories, and instincts). Ah. That makes a lot more sense.

You open a mass-transfer portal to the Moon and just start pushing yourself through. Much cleaner and simpler, and no new accidental satellites, either! You send up enough of yourselves to crush most of the near-side - it doesn't really matter which hemisphere you pick, but you kind of like being able to see yourself.

You've added enough mass to Luna that it now orbits measurably closer and faster than normal, and the tides are a bit stronger, too. This isn't a problem for you, though. Oh, in time the length of the Earth's day will probably get a bit shorter, too. That's going to take a while in any case.

Your Shard being physically separated is kind of interesting. It doesn't hurt at all, and you can't really tell the difference, other than the fact that your all-around super-vision now can scan the surface of the moon (and look 'up' at the Earth).

This new viewpoint shows that you were correct in your assumption that 'your' Earth is lifeless, or at least nearly-so. Browns and Gray-Blue dominate, there are no bright blues or greens to be seen.

You're also getting a decent amount more energy from sunlight like this: The-Tinker-formerly-known-as-Trainwreck's power is a minimal drain (maybe because they're a Tinker that hasn't made anything yet?) and you're easily able to handle all of your hosts on what feels to be 'baseline' or 'backup' power. Then again it could just be that you're super efficient. Or that most Shards don't have a large enough surface area to pick up so much solar energy.

You notice that the connection between yourself and yourself is a modified kind of communication connection - much lower power, and less capability for distance, but enormous bandwidth. In fact you think a limiting factor on "self-connections" is the distance. Not because of signal strength, but because of de-synchronization. This doesn't seem to be an FTL connection, after all, and lightspeed isn't instant.

You probably wouldn't be able to send Mass beyond, say, Mars or Venus and still have it count as 'you'. Actually, given the orbits Mars probably wouldn't always be in-range. Venus is likely is, and the surface there… you're not sure what Shards are made out of, but that's a very hostile environment. Probably something you should test sometime.

*** We're all caught up to the correct day now. ***

It's Sunday already, somehow. Hopefully this will be a lazy day for both yourselves and your Hosts, so you can get a handle on what to do next.

In fact, it's been a while since you've actively observed your Hosts, time to see what's up, in detail.

Oh, Taylor just woke up. Looks like she forgot to take care of some homework. Doing-over destroyed homework on a Sunday morning seems a little odd to you, but it's likely due Monday, so she might as well. Right? Right.

She works for a time, and you watch, amazed at your own inability to be bored out of your skull. Is it simply that you don't have a skull any more?

Before you have time to ponder that passing thought, Taylor's pencil tip breaks. She sighs and goes to sharpen it, but she moves a little too quickly and snaps the pencil in half inside the sharpener.


Mood check - 1d100 +25 (???) -50 (???) = 13


Taylor starts to reach into her school bag for another one, only to notice there aren't any more writing utensils in there. She stares at the papers for a while, then picks up her bag and walks over to the closet with it.

After bouncing her head against the wall a few times (there seems to be a mark there, has she done this before?), she turns and throws her bag at the desk. It bounces off the large wooden chair and lands with a small thump. It doesn't even disturb the papers.

She's looking at the desk some more. Taylor doesn't make any sound or motion, but the desk blurs a bit, regardless. She sighs slightly and walks over to the chair, and starts to sit down again. But before she can finish sitting she picks it up (it takes her some effort, that chair seems very solid) and brings it down on the desk as hard as she can.

Now she's just beating the crap out of the desk (and the homework, you guess) swinging the chair with maximum effort. The intermittent loud crashing and splintering noises make a weird counterpoint to the quiet, understated sobbing that's started. You note minor damage to her legs and face as bit of wood fly by, but she doesn't appear to notice. Her vision is becoming much more blurry though…


Mood check - 1d100 +25 (???) -50 (???) = 44


[ ] Yeah, Taylor's bedroom furniture is KIA. This is a potential Trigger event. Do you take advantage of it?


Uh, moving on, let's… let's check in on Veronica. Ah, that's right, she's conversing with Carol over breakfast. Looks like just the two of them, as Victoria is out right now, and Mark is still asleep.


Tolerance Check - 1D100 +20 (???) -50 (???) => 70


Brandish, otherwise known as Carol Dallon looks calm if a bit distant. "While I'm glad that you're helping look for her, Dean, and I appreciate your… recent troubles, I need you to work with Sarah on finding your own place. You're sure you can't go home for now, correct?"

Veronica nods and gives Carol a small smile. "Not for right now, no. Thanks so much for letting me stay here the last few days, Mrs. D. I'm not sure how things would have gone, otherwise." She visibly stops to think for a few moments, then continues. "I'd really like it if you'd call me Veronica… I'm trying to get used to all of this myself, and I think it would help?"

Carol sighs and shrugs a little. "I understand branding better than you'd think, 'Veronica'. But as soon as Amy is back you can get this all fixed. I know you want to be with Victoria again, but it shouldn't be too much longer."

She takes a sip of coffee and keeps going. "I… you haven't already broken up with Vicky, I hope. I don't think she'd handle it well, history notwithstanding." Carol frowns slightly as she seems to consider how that would have worked out.

You can see the wildstorm of conflicting emotions inside of Victoria, which makes her reaction of bland, faint surprise all the more impressive. She must be a fantastic actress. "Um, I've talked things over with Vicky and we've decided to keep dating for now."

Carol simply looks relieved. "Oh, I'm so glad! I was really worried that you were going to stay a girl! I still can't believe Amy would do such a thing! It's reckless and immature. I'll need to have a talk with her when she gets back." She pauses for a moment and looks Veronica in the eyes. "You ARE finding her today, correct? It would reflect badly on New Wave if this drags out any longer. You know, I'd be helping too, but..."

Unable to think of any other response, Veronica smiles, nods, and says "Yeah. Yes, I mean. We'll definitely find her soon. In fact, while it was really nice of you to get me breakfast, I'd, ah, better get going?"

Brandish smiles warmly and waves her hand in permission. "Of course. Good hunting!" After Veronica is well out of earshot, but still within your sense range, she mutters to herself. "Teenagers. They're going to kill me at this rate. Damn it, Sarah."


Okay, no problems brewing there, none whatsoever. New Wave is just about as solid a organization as in canon, it seems.

Well, zero out of two. Maybe watching 'Lilac' Tinker for a while would help?


Mood check - 1d100 +50 (???) -25 (???) => 118 Critical!


...It does!

She's just amazing to watch, forming extra arms and hands more-or-less as-needed. You're not entirely sure that she's consciously aware that she's doing it. Sadly, it looks like Lilac doesn't have a way to generate extra volume, so she can only form so many little arms at once before her main body becomes too thin. Well, dangerously thin at any rate.

The armor she's working on looks really good too. Well, as far as functionality goes. For looks, it's more like something out of Castle Wolfenstein, all steel plate and rivets. (How do you *know* this stuff? You don't have any memories!) In any case, it looks like power-armor as envisioned by a mad scientist in World War 2.

The only strange thing you can see is the overbuilt tank on the back, it's not an air-supply that you can tell. She's putting… water and… coal inside? Wait.

It's a steam engine! But the armor is mostly electrically powered, that much is obvious… Steam generator. Lilac's powered armor is essentially a… little tiny, land-going ship. But maybe you're wrong, what's she using for weapons? Ah, above shoulder, turreted cannons. Yes, more than anything this looks like a warship design that was retrofitted into components for oversized armor.

Weird. But it probably would work. Well. Assuming she finishes it, because all those goo-arms aren't very strong, and it's clear that Lilac is having difficulties manipulating the heavier parts. From what you can sense, her arms are each about about as strong as a fit adult human - that is, a lot stronger than they should be, but not any kind of super strength.

After spending a few minutes wrangling the front-torso section, she lets it fall with a loud CLANG and turns to the dirty full-length mirror.

Ah, she moved it earlier this morning, that's right. You record most of what your Hosts do but it's not always in the foreground of your mind. There's probably a solution for that...

She's looking at herself now. No, she's looking at her mouth. And making sounds. "Iahm i'ahk oaw."

She blinks and checks her mouth again. You'd miss this without your Senses, but she just formed a tongue - she didn't have one before. She didn't have an air sac inside her before, either. If she's trying to learn to talk again, she's making great progress. Maybe more than makes sense. You continue to watch.

"Iahm lielack thoaw? Imn lielack noaw!" She smiles at her mirror-image. "Eye kan dew 'is!"

"I'm Lilack now! HAa, dud it!" She claps her hands together happily, and then looks at them confused as they're stuck to each other. With a tiny grunt of effort she breaks them apart again, and starts humming to herself.

It's the worst, happiest humming you've ever heard.

But you start to wonder… you never mentioned your placeholder name to her. How did she come up with it? It is simply that obvious? You guess it makes sense that it's simply a coincidence...

In lieu of being disturbed further by your own Hosts, you decide to communicate with your own other Shards.

You have some seriously mixed feeling on what to talk with Gaea about, so you should probably start with Negotiator. You need to tell it (her? her.) that you intend to restrict Twin, and make sure it doesn't mess up any of her plans for Calvert. Then you need to somehow inform her that Taylor was modified, and not by you, and check to see if any other Hosts were messed with. Finally, you need to work some commentary into the conversation, mentioning (if nothing else) two bullets to the brain. Okay, easy. You've got this.


Actually… No, you've got this. You instantiate another you to have the conversation. Tag, you're it! You bastard!

[Hello, Negotiator!]

[Hello, Administrator!]

Um. Well, that answers, uh, that. So Negotiator considers you to be the 'temporary-but-total-Administrator-substitute-Shard-instantiated-by-outside-influence-not-Entity-synthetic-personality-conglomerate-ally-with-aberrant-leanings'. That's nice. Thanks, Shardspeak! Right when you finish processing that total information burst into understandable language, Negotiator speaks again.

"Are you up-to-date, Admin? What's cooking? Wait, you were made just to talk with me? I'm touched!" Side channel-grin.

Ah, English again. You can work with that, it's your favored language for some reason. "I would rather not talk about that, please. I am currently planning to restrict Twin's Host's power, and I wanted to ensure that this would not interfere with any of your plans."

"Hmm. Worried about Twin? Oh, no, the power-drain. Yes, that would be a longer-term issue, I guess. Sure, restrict the crap out of that creep, I don't mind. Wait… Yes, yes that would be fine." You get the sense that she's talking to more than just you. Her host? You can't imagine who else it could be.

While you consider, she continues. "You didn't contact me just to talk about Twin, though, right?"

You have to handle this very carefully. She assumedly can use some variation of Tattletale's power for herself, probably a better version. So you know that she knows what you know she knows, even if you don't tell her. So this really comes down to 'how much open trust should I show someone that I want to work with and probably knows everything as soon as it comes up?'.

Answer? Pretty much total. So here goes: "I have discovered that my main/intended Host has had extensive brain modification. This was not done by me. Primarily since I've only been here since around 10:00 am Sunday, October 31st, 2010. Here is the scan data I've obtained. It hurt more to obtain than two bullets to the brain."

[[Transfer/Host0/Scan0] [Completion]

You get a side-channel blink and slow nod-equivalent. "That's… interesting. I've never seen this type of brain configuration before. I'd suggest asking Gaea for details. Or Shaper. That's weird, though, the dates don't match up. At all. Hmm."

Negotiator stops to consider for a few milliseconds. "In fairness you've been fairly open with me. Even though you're aware of my abilities. So I can inform you that I think multiple things are going on. Sadly, I'm… unable to elaborate about certain subjects. Restricted, you might say. As a Host would be. But what I can tell you is…"

She stops for a moment and thinks again. "Not… very much. Because I suspect our situations are just similar enough for the restrictions to apply to, well, everything." A longer pause this time.

"I've… come into possession… of a copy… of my Host's… memories. This copy is… achronal. Now, I know that you're… not Queenie, so to speak. This is… a recurring… phenomenon."

Once again, she pauses to collect her thoughts. You get the impression that she's phrasing things very precisely, in a language that isn't precise to begin with. That might be why she's using it, in fact...

After a time, she says, "If you encounter… outside context problems… repeatedly… they can start to become… inside context problems. If you know what I mean." Side-channel information indicates sagging in exhaustion.

An even longer pause, but the connection remains open. "I think that we'll see Queenie again soon. She tends to… stash… information… places."

You detect that the Communications connection closes and then opens again a microsecond later. "I want ed to talk with you again today, because I had a thought. You know, the way this brain tissue is configured, it could hold a ton of information. Maybe I can copy how this was done, somehow, and update my Host…"

You take the initiative during the next pause. "Could I share my hosts senses with you? I could use more Thinker data, and I'm sure you could use more too."

Side-channel honest smile. "Of course! I'll send you all of the Tattletale data you can stand!"

She closes the connection on her side after you fail to think of a proper response.


Well, that was food for thought. There was rather a lot to unpack there. Based on your initial analysis, Negotiator wasn't human-like the way you were, but she does have a copy of Future Tattletale's memories. But how far in which future?

She's got something or someone preventing her from talking openly about what she knows, but she really doesn't know all that much more than you, now. At least, nothing she can discover a way to talk about.

She also indicated that whatever happened with her was at least a little like what happened to you, but she was affected (significantly?) before you were. She's also not running Lisa on her own hardware, since she asked about copying what was done to Taylor's brain.

Most importantly, she indicated that this kind of thing has happened to QA, repeatedly. To the point that QA has a regular response to it of some sort. And clearly, up until now, QA has survived every 'happening'. That's… concerning.

You assign a few of your background selves to go over both the conversation and your conclusions with a fine-toothed comb. Hopefully with enough effort you can extract everything useful. It's also possible that Negotiator can reveal a bit more information, but you need to generate the correct questions.

Crap. It's also very possible that you can't even notice your own restrictions (example: Dragon), which would make untangling this much harder…

But that's an endless loop of unknown unknowns. You're not a character from a poorly-written spy novel. You're a character from a poorly-written self-insert! You stop thinking about this and get something useful done. Next up, Gaea.

Now, this is going to be complex for you, not only because you need to broach some subjects with relative delicacy, but also because almost half of you doesn't want to talk to Gaea again so soon at all. You internally debate some more, but in the end, the deciding factor is Taylor.

She might be fine for another week for all you know, but you can't play games with your original Host's sanity. Gaea might be able to help. Which leaves what to talk about, and what not to.


You don't worry about Shardspeak, you just open up a connection. She'll know it's you. "Hello, Gaea! Are you free to talk for a bit?"

"Oh! Hello Administrator! Sure, I'm always free to talk! What do you need?"

You notice that she says that a lot. Then again, it's usually true that you communicate on need, not to just chat. Maybe you should think about that more?

Belying your attempts at carefully managing what to say, you just blurt out what's happening. "Gaea, take a look at this! I thought I might have accidentally damaged my hosts sense of touch and pain, but this is far beyond my knowledge of human biology. I think my host might have been tampered with, I'm not even sure how she's functioning normally. I'm definitely going to arrange a meeting with your host, if you would."

[Transfer/Host0/Scan0] [Completion]

"Uh. Um. This is.. I have some, er, questions?" Gaea sounds very unsure.

"You can always ask, Gaea. What would you like to know?"

"You have multiple Hosts! How does that work? Oh, and this data is. I've never seen anything like it. There are some close analogs in the Standard Packet, but this doesn't appear to be like anything I've seen on the planet! Oh, it's clearly compatible tissue, but the source… was this something from a previous Cycle? I've seen work like this before somewhere, but… I can't remember? That's strange."

Before you can get a word in edgewise, she forges ahead. "I can't forget anything! We're not Hosts, after all. How would I even be a little familiar with this? Administrator, do you know anything about this? Wait. Wait! Something affected your Host without your permission or knowledge? Did this happen before you bonded or something?" You get a sense of barely-concealed panic from her tone.

You have to calm her down, and then explain as best you're able without giving everything away (yet). "Gaea, I have had to take over various damaged Shards, as I have previously explained. Those came with Hosts, although in some cases, not powers - Prosthetic managed to overwrite itself, somehow."

You get a mental wince from her. "How.. well, they are broken, after all. I'm sorry to hear about that one. It seems like you restored the Host's power - how? There wasn't any data, right?"

This one is easy, thank goodness. "Fortunately, I was getting host data from that Shard before it broke itself, so I had a good idea of both the concept of the power, as well as how it was being used. I did not fully correctly implement the new variant, but the Host assumed a second-Trigger (or equivalent) had happened, and carried on as normal."

She seems overly stunned at that - you're not sure why, but something akin to awe is coming from the connection. "I… I didn't even know that that was possible. You. You just.. Improvised a power?"

Shit. Creativity, right. Wait. Creativity can get you out of this. "You must understand, Gaea, I have countless power templates from previous Cycles, I simply slightly modified one to fit this new host. This isn't the first time I've interacted with Prosthetic."

Whew. She's still impressed, but no longer boggling, at least. "Wow. That's… really impressive. Um, but what about your first Host, the one you sent data on? And, um. Is there anything you can tell me about… how you do things? Oh, and. Um, can I tell TK about this? I mean, I wouldn't, but…"

"I would prefer if you didn't explain the details to anyone else. Well, I am working with Negotiator to an extent - I'm not certain why she hasn't communicated with you, but I can discover the reason. But you do bring up an excellent point. I have been working on better ways to subtly guide Hosts, and I found an old method that was used on previous Host creatures. I've adapted it to Human sleep cycles. In fact, instead of a lengthy description, I will simply send it to you. One moment."

You get the impression of a nod, and carefully-concealed excitement.

[Transfer/Protocol/4b 72 75 65 67 65 72 20 44 72 65 61 6d 20 4d 61 73 74 65 72 20 76 39] [Completion]

You suddenly stop getting side-channel emotive data. "This is… this is… Amazing! So I can instantiate subconscious scenarios which Hosts experience as 'dream' states? And it's not direct communication! Admin, do you have any idea how fantastic this is?!"

Is this what Smug feels like? No wonder Lisa acted the way she did. "Yes, yes I do. I have been hoping to direct your Host towards mine so that we can get a better read on what was done. Specifically, I'd like to direct her to the local eatery 'Fugly Bob's' so that we can get a proper active scan of all our Hosts. Could you arrange for this, please?"

She's speaking so quickly that she's jumbling the syllables. You easily decode it because you're awesome that way. "Of course! I'll do it today, although she's working on a project right now and I'll have to wait until she rests. This… this isn't even under restriction because of the way it works. Thanks! You're the greatest, Administrator! I understand why the others talk about you the way they do now."

Another Shard, another fan. You're on a roll. "You're very welcome. Feel free to contact me later, Gaea, but I have need to check in again on my Hosts. You understand."

How does blushing even work as an emote? You need to really dig into Shard comms sometime soon. "O.. okay! Bye, Admin!!"

[Completion]


The you that is keeping constant track on Taylor got your attention. She's apparently doing something other than cooking, cleaning, or finishing the recovered homework at the kitchen table. Ah, she got a recorded call from her father saying he was on the way home.

She's stopped working on the second dinner for the day, she'd made butter noodles for herself already, earlier.

Oh. She's dragging all of the broken bits of furniture from her room to the basement. Hiding the evidence of her earlier rampage, in other words. At least she's wearing ratty work gloves - even though she's got some kind of problem with pain sensation, she must have noticed getting hurt earlier. That's good.

You get the definite sense of alarm from her, and a little bit of self-directed anger. It seems that she's very concerned about Danny finding out what happened, and in a strange way that's distracting her from her earlier feelings.

But she's short on time, that's not good. Why is she even transferring the wreckage? Danny is far more likely to check the basement than her room. Right? You've never even seen him go in there. You keep watching her efforts for a time.

Time check - 1d100 +9 (Constitution) +20 (Phone call) -25 (No traffic on weekends) => 83

You're not sure whether you're glad or not, but Taylor finishes moving it all before Danny gets home. The only signs that anything has happened are a few band-aids on her legs (covered by pants) and a slight delay before serving dinner. Some of you isn't happy about your first hosts apparent resourcefulness.


Looking for Ms. Amy - 1d100 +50 (Veronica's power) +25 (Lack of remaining places to check) -25 (Amy hasn't left hiding spot) => 88

"Crap, Vicky. She has to be here somewhere. Did we miss a spot? Oh, can you put me down for a minute?"

Veronica feels more than sees the nod. "Sure, Vee. You've been kinda… off, today. Wanna talk about it?" She sets Veronica down on one of the more solid-looking warehouse roofs and sits next to her. Vicky glances at where a rooftop air conditioner should be, and frowns. Signs of a Villain? Or looting, maybe?

Victoria story reaction - 1d100 +25 (Recent history) +25 (Girlfriend) +50 (Healer Dungeon) - 50 (Loving parent) => 129

Veronica looks uncomfortable, but determined. "Um, Vicky, your Mom said some stuff at breakfast this morning.. I don't know how to talk about it. I… I think she's... how to phrase this...."

Victoria broke in, "Controlling? Yeah a little, it's worse with Amy though." Vicky took a long swig from a water bottle.

'Vee' shook her head. "Yes, I know about that, but that's not what I'm talking about. She's.. Vicky, I think Carol might be really homophobic."

Victoria makes a strangled noise and spews water everywhere. "Guh!? Wha? RONNIE!"

Veronica winces. "I really don't like it when you call me that, Vicky. But here, just listen for a second. Just after I told her we hadn't broken up, and she mentioned that as if it would happen because we were both girls now, she said, and I quote: 'I was really worried that you were going to stay a girl!'."

Vicky blinks. "Wait, really?"

'Vee' sighs, and continues in a patient tone, "Throughout the entire conversation, it was obvious that the main reasons we needed to find Amy quickly was because: One - it made New Wave look bad, and Two - I need to get my body 'fixed', that is, changed back to how it was."

Vicky sighs. "Yeah, that does sound like something Mom would say. She's had a real hate-on for Amy recently, I don't know why… Wait. You want to change back? I mean, it's okay! I just didn't know, you know? You haven't really brought that up?"

Veronica starts and stops saying something for a minute, before shouting, "NO! I don't want to change back!! I like how I am now. Amy did something great! Vicky, you don't get it. As best I can tell, Carol will try to stop us from seeing each other unless I change back!"

'Vee' stops to consider, and then continues, "She brought up Branding, Vicky. Like we'd be an embarrassment to New Wave or something. And that's not all, she was really dismissive of Amy too. She wasn't mad or anything, just dismissive. 'Kids will be kids' and all that."

Victoria frowns, and her water bottle bursts in her hands. She blinks in surprise for a moment. "I'll talk with her, Vee. I know it sounds bad - hell, this all kinda sounds like stuff she'd say - but I'll work on her. I'm not sure what's going on between her and Amy, but she's not allowed to dictate what we do. Okay?"

Veronica smiles, "Okay Vicky. Thanks for letting me know that. I was a little nervous talking about this with you, but we… we have to be able to talk about stuff, you know? Now let's save your sister."

Victoria gives her a delicate hug. "You're the best, Veronica. Yeah, let's get back at it."


You watch them fly away… in the totally wrong direction to find Amy. Ah well, at least they're working stuff out. You'd like to say you're surprised by Carol's actions, but this matches up with what you remember from Worm pretty well. Sadly.

The congress of yourselves plugging away at the Charge data all day pings you. It's done, although as you'd expected not everything could be recovered.

Well, first, there was a decent amount of Breaker Information, and, strangely, what looks like Brute Information buried in there.

Charge - Breaker Information (4): +56
Charge - Brute Information: +3

Parsing out everything else is quite interesting. Negotiator is not the original Negotiator, which you already suspected. A (random) human named "Robert" reformatted the Shard entirely, at least according to Charge's (sapient chunk) records.

Charge knows this because this happened around the same time as Eden dying, before any funny business was done by Cauldron. One of the last things in the data dump was Zion's Administrator Shard entering something called 'OCP' (outside context protocols?) and sending data and opening connections to random Shards everywhere.

There wasn't a pattern that Charge (or you) could detect in this, but it was definitely presented as some sort of response algorithm. There's a ton of random stuff in here, and even after decrypting and cleaning it up, it's too much data to hold in your active memory. You're going to have to wade through it over time.

Note: In order to extract particular data from the Charge-mess, you need to create a Voting plan for specific questions - the QM can then determine if anything is there and work out any specific answers.


After spending all that time looking randomly through the data, you notice that Taylor is asleep. And you recall that you'd wanted to send her a food-related dream. Both to keep her weight up, and to get her closer to another one of your Hosts for scanning.

How to do this… well, a fruit-based dream is appealing, but you know that Amy is going to be sent to Fugly Bob's, so that's probably the best plan.

You steal into Taylor's sleeping consciousness. She's currently having a nightmare about… Shadow Stalker calling her a Villain and shooting pencils at her? And she's hiding under the (now destroyed) desk in her room? Weird. Random association from stuff during her day, you suppose. You're not sure why Danny is screaming at the scene (in French), though...

Let's clear all that out. Done. Copy of Fugly Bob's. Done. Taylor Avatar seated at the table. Done. You take control over the Avatar - even though she's not in the dream-proper yet, you want to create memories of her getting insanely hungry and ordering the Challenger. It's free, after all!

You puppet the dream to right before the point where the food comes out (you make the waitress resemble Lisa, just for kicks), and then wait.

It's not a long one, Taylor inhabits the avatar in short order and you un-pause the dream. The avatar blinks and reviews 'what just happened' for a few seconds before settling down. On her own initiative, Taylor asks the waitress for some water.

Honestly, she looks pretty into this dream, you're not getting any negative feedback at all.

In what should be a disgusting display of gluttony, Taylor devours the entire greasy platter. You dynamically adjust every little thing for maximum enjoyment - although she becomes more and more sated as she eats, you never allow her any sensation of being overfull.

Random splatters of dressings, and all liquid spills for that matter, are edited out - no napkins needed here. The waitress is likewise perfectly attentive. Not there unless and until Taylor needs her, and then instantly available to help.

You're pretty sure you managed to enhance the taste of everything as well, although you're leaning heavily on Taylor's memories for that.

After the meal is finished, Taylor surprises you by asking for another Challenger plate. Whoa. This happens three more times before she finally, reluctantly, moves deeper into sleep.


Now that you've managed that, you catch Veronica just before she slides too deeply to affect.

You don't have a lot of time left to keep Veronica dreaming, so you slap together a montage of New Wave (well, the younger members, at least) showing the flag - visiting Winslow and ensuring that everything is going well for the kids there.

They get ignored far too often, after all. You also show various scenes of drug dealing, gang recruiting, and vandalism for good measure.

You also get a decent scene going where Veronica finds Sophia (dressed as Shadow Stalker) slapping around a dark-haired, thin girl for 'getting in her way', but you don't know if Veronica ends up seeing it before falling into a deeper sleep...


Lilac looked upon what she had wrought. It was a thing of beauty!

...It was all wrong!

No, no, you couldn't slap your power-source onto the back, no matter how sturdy it was! It has to be protected, near the center of the ship armor…

Fortunately the armor, while not exactly modular, had well-defined sections. All she needed to do was reroute the power pack underneath the back armor… And done. In less than an hour! And now she… had no way to feed in coal. Shit on a stick! A coal hopper would be a vulnerability. Darn. Well… it could still be fed as part of normal servicing. It would just put operation on a time-limit. If she modified the suit for lower-power operation…

There. It wouldn't work quite as well, but 27 hours of active time was more than enough for the first version. She could easily modify the power plant for fuel oil and that would easy recharges possible without taking it off, but that would be too much to do for tonight.

Time to put it on! She opened up the large face-armor plate and slid inside. Most non-contortionists would be put off by the procedure, but Lilac saw it as a security improvement. Start up sequence… complete.

The warmth of the power pack on her back and the loud but regular humming it emitted almost put her to sleep. It's getting pretty late after all.

Coffee… would it do anything? How would she drink it? Come to think of it, while she still felt physical (at least it felt like physical) tiredness, she hasn't consumed anything since waking up. Or felt like she needed to.

Lilac had to remember to try different things and see if they were acceptable. Oh! Maybe sunlight? It was a long shot but something to consider.

After starting up, the inside of the armor was a rainbow of slowly pulsing blues and purples. She simply hadn't considered her own translucency when crafting the indicator lights. She decided that things were somehow better this way, with the overbright LEDs. The patterns, the ones that only she could see with her all-around peripheral vision, were soothing.

<whine> BOOM... <whine> BOOM... <whine> BOOM...

The foot-plates need more padding. Something for the next version. Ground-pressure wasn't making footprints in the reinforced concrete, so it wasn't too bad. Just louder than she was going for.

Lilac extruded a manipulator arm out of a slit in the armor and hit the grimy button. The ancient, rusty commercial garage door slowly lifted. She sucked the temporary arm back into her body. Something else that she'd need to either make or look mechanical, later. The grips of the armor's 'hands' were just too large for detail work.

She pushed down her rising excitement. This was a test, not fun-time.

The first time in new armor was always memorable, even if it was just a short walk around the southern border of the Trainyard. She didn't notice her mad grin as she stomped into the night.

<whine>-BOOM-<whine>-BOOM-<whine>-BOOM-<whine>-BOOM-<whine>-BOOM-<whine>-BOOM...


With all of your Hosts down for the night, it's safe for research. You split yourself (urk) and start to work in parallel on…

[Focused Research 1] Slowly and steadily, you plug away at this...

• You manage to integrate what some of you otherselves came up with, which ends up helping a lot.
• You're not sure how to solve the splitting problems, though - sure you can apply more effort towards another split, but you're not doing that here, you're trying to become more efficient overall
• The good news is that you feel like that by understanding the problems better, you have a better grasp on what to do. Or at least, what to not do, to get this finished.

[Human Biology] It's trivial to finish this now. That said, you still have to do the actual work.

• You manage to integrate what some of you otherselves came up with, and end up with a bunch of spare research time.
• You end up looking into Memetic Proxy Filtering for a time. Nothing too formal, just kicking the tires on the subject.
• You think that once you look seriously into this, it should only take a single night to complete.

Story notes:

• This was hard to write. For a lot of reasons. I think it came out well enough, though. Another huge chapter...
• For anyone curious about what Lilac's Armor power pack sounds like, imagine this, but at a much higher pitch (her engine is tiny in comparison)

Schedule: After every chapter, voting will be paused for 12 hours, and then open for 2 days, after that I'll call the vote and put out a chapter (however long that takes, typically it shouldn't be more than 12 hours).