An. This chapter was Betaed by
@Trek
0o0
Chapter 12
0o0
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
0o0
*+1 charge for interlude 09*
*1/4 charges*
Taylor was quite pleased that after two weeks under accelerated time Amy decided she did want to join her empire as a herald. It took long talks, lots of convening and use of her perks but in the end Amy was a teenager and Taylor had supernatural charisma and leadership. In order to develop both girls as quickly as possible Taylor decided to grant them both the ageless perk after which the three of them spent every second before morning under the fastest time acceleration they could manage, which in total gave them nearly 5 weeks of intense training.
Plans were made and Amy had to leave for school with Vicky, with a blank vest of course, an agreement was reached before they departed that Amy would bring Vicky over as soon as school was out so that they could talk the girl into also getting her powers changed.
The plan was simple,Taylor would offer Vicky a chance to gain proper control over the emotion aura aspect of her power, first asking if she wanted it outright removed, if Vicky agreed to that she would be able to just give Vicky every other part of her power.
As much as Taylor would rather return to her workshop after Amy left to continue work on her weapon, the fact was there were some things that could only be done under normal time which meant she was going to tend to those now, allowing her to collect as much information about them first before she disappeared under time acceleration where she would have long periods of time to think about various topics and make plans.
Her biggest concern was whatever group was creating the alien vials that gave other people powers, and she had the perfect person to ask about it now.
Making her way in costume, Selene found Assault and Battery making their patrols downtown. The route had been assigned last minute so that the Protectorate could be seen out and about after the endbringer attack, something her VI had told her by tracking the pair when they left the Rig.
The reasoning behind it was quite clear, it was a show of force that was supposed to tell criminals that the Protectorate would still respond if they tried anything during the endbringer attack.
*2/4 charges*
Selene was quite sure both of them knew she was a Guild Member now, so she approached the pair calling out as she got close.
"Assault, Battery."
"Selene?" Assault noted as the pair turned to look at her, surprised that she was there. "Shouldn't you be in school?"
"I'm home tutored, and now that I am a Guild member it was decided to scale that back too and just get a GED, which I be getting in a few months when they do the next round of exams, the freed time means I can focus more on Guild business, which is why I am here."
"Oh. Isn't this a little quick though? You just became a member of the Guild yesterday." Assault noted, relaxing at that.
"It's something I have been working on for months, I was meaning to talk to you about it , but I decided it was better to broach the topic after I was joined the Guild"
"That's pretty vague" Assault noted.
"It's not really something that can be discussed in public." Selene informed them. "At any rate I would like to talk to you about it after the end of your patrol in a more private setting if possible. I decided given the nature of the inquiry it would be better to come to you directly."
"About what exactly?" Battery pressed.
"Again, private, not here in public." Selene repeated.
"Guild business?" Assault asked.
"Guild Business." Selene confirmed.
"Well, that's a good enough reason to call off our patrol, it's not like we are the only ones out here tonight. To the PRT HQ building?"
"If it's all the same to you, I would rather bring you to my lab, it's closer. It already has a lot more defenses then the HQ building has, which would make it harder for hostile thinkers to listen in."
"Your willing to show us your lab?" Assault asked, clearly surprised.
"Of course. I have already shown it to Dragon, Amy and Vicky. I do plan to show Armsmaster later. I don't have as much of a reason to hide it now that I am a Guild member. It's now properly owned under my cape name, so someone could look up where it is anyway once the paperwork is processed."
"Well in that case, sure, lead the way."
0o0
Selene brought the pair to the same door that Vicky and Amy had used, it was a location Selene had optimally calculated to fulfill most of her requirements, it would be the access point to the lab that would be known to the PRT.
Selene brought them inside, then escorted them over to a harmless looking office she had set up to diffuse any tensions..
The pair looked around clearly quite interested in everything they passed by, Selene made sure to tell them about the other doors as they passed by but warning them about the sensitive nature of the technology threin and thus the restriction upon entry.
Once inside the room, she had them sit down in a pair of extremely comfortable chairs as she set up some drinks and snacks from a table nearby.
"Are these tinkertech chairs?" Assault asked as he tested the chair after sitting down.
It was a mundane material probably 5 years ahead of current tech, it was one of the technologies that Taylor knew was safe to release for her ruse to pretend to not know about the aliens.
"Sort of. The material is tinkertech, but that's it. I'm going to be sharing it with Armsmaster later." Selene answered as she offered him a cup of coffee brewed to perfection, before offering another cup to his wife.
They took a sip as Selene settled down in her own chair and waited until after they finished savoring the supernatural taste.
"Do you have anything here that is normal?" Assault noted.
"This is my lab. Probably a few minor things here could be considered normal" Selene reminded him with a smile. "But let's get to the main point, the reason why I invited you here."
"Of course. What exactly did you intend to ask us?" Assault noted.
Selene turned to look at Battery, and decided the best way to do this was to be blunt.
"Battery, exactly who did you buy your powers from?"
Selene watched both of them carefully as she asked that. She didn't know if Assault knew or not. But it was the sort of thing she felt a wife would tell her husband, and so she decided against asking to speak to Battery alone.
She was pleased to see that Assault shared Battery's same thoughts at that, namely confusion on how Selene knew anything about it.
"I didn't buy my powers. You can't buy powers." Battery was fairly quick to respond in a defensive tone and posture.
Selene was prepared for that and held up a duplicate of the vital she had collected. It was empty, but she wasn't going to tell them that.
"Trust me I have done my research and testing these over the past few months" Selene corrected her. "Drink this and you gain powers. I have multiple of these vials, although what powers they grant aren't clear from the criminal I took them from, the fact is that someone made these, and I can tell everyone who has drank one of these to gain powers from one of my new sensors. Don't try and lie to me, I also have a lie detector set up, I know you took one to get your powers. You bought them, you're not the only one whose power is bought, you're not even the only one in the Protectorate ENE. Two other parahumans in the local division alone have bought their powers, and I intend to talk to them about this too."
Selene could see that they were both surprised to learn that others had bought their powers, she was disappointed as it meant they likely didn't know much.
*3/4 charges*
"Who exactly?" Assault asked without thinking about it.
"So does that mean your admitting that your wife brought her powers?" Selene jumped on.
"I didn't buy my powers, I triggered with them just like anyone else, Selene. I would have thought you of all people would understand given what happen to you. Please don't belittle the suffering I experienced and overcome it to become a hero."
Selene didn't focus on the lie, but in the desperation that Battery felt, like something bad would happen to her if she told the truth.
"Are you powers bobbytrapped?" Selene asked, skipping over the lie. "It wouldn't be the first case of someone who drank one of these that ended up with their powers turning on them. In some case they themselves didn't know until it was too late."
Selene could tell that Battery didn't think her powers were trapped until that last line, but she did believe something extremely bad would happen to her if she talked.
"What do you mean?" Battery asked, clearly concerned.
Selene mixed lies and truths with her answer. "The young woman I got these from drank one of them herself due to the situation she was in. Things were fine at first, but over the next few months she started to slowly twist away from human. I know you had your powers for years, not months so your powers are probably not bobbytrapped. But she didn't buy these like you did, she found them. Plus, there is the connection with case 53s, every single case 53 bought their powers and based on the woman I am dealing with in the background, I suspect they were failures who had their memories wiped and released afterwards. Which very well could have happened to you Battery. Is that why your afraid of talking? If you talk, will they break your power somehow, make you into a case 53 and erase your memory and release you somewhere?"
Selene gained a lot from Battery's reactions to that. Battery hadn't even considered Case 53s connection with the vials, but she did think if she talked that they would erase her memories too.
The death of self, erasure of your identity, of your memories if you talk.
It did not sound like a group that Selene wanted to get involved in, but she was mindful that this group seemed to oppose the aliens. She needed to know more.
She couldn't think of a rational reason why the aliens would be setting up these vitals that seem to express the granted powers.
Selene waited as Battery panicked and tried to come up with a way to stop Selene from digging further, Assault acted his wife with worry and concern.
Finally she spoke up.
"Yes, that is the price I will pay if I talk about how I bought my powers. I'm sorry Selene, I can't help you with this. They would know if I talked, even admitting this much might be too much. Please drop it."
"I won't keep pressing you, Battery, but I am not going to stop pursuing it from other avenues. However, you could save me a lot of time if you can just get me in contact with them."
"I don't have any way to contact them. They contacted me with the offer and I accepted. After I got my powers that was it. I haven't had any contact with them since."
Selene noted that Battery wasn't lying about not having a way to contact them, but she was lying about the fact she hadn't had contact with them since she got her powers, they had contacted her afterwards and from what Selene could guess was she expected to contact her again.
"I see. I am curious, did they say why they were selling powers to you?"
"I thought you said that you weren't going to press for more information?" Assault injected.
"She doesn't have to answer if she doesn't want to. But I am going to do the ask the same questions to everyone that bought powers. Unravelling the source of powers is one of my goal's in the Guild and its quite clear someone had figured it out how to give powers."
Selene tilted the vital in her hands.
"I suppose I could do such with these as well. I only need to take one apart to study it myself and it would probably reveal a great deal about the nature of powers. Maybe I can make the process safer, but that will wait until I can get in touch with them".
0o0
After Taylor finished talking with Battery and Assault she let them leave and told the VI to pay more attention to the couple and notify her if it saw them contacted by this mysteors group. After that it was back to working on her weapon under time acceleration until Amy returned with Vicky.
"Hey Taylor." Vicky greeted Taylor as she entered the room with Amy. "Amy said you wanted to talk to me?"
"Yes, about Amy, Lisa and well, you too. It's about your powers."
"What about them? Is there something wrong?" Vicky asked looking over at Amy in concern.
"Vicky, Taylor was able to adjust my powers so I could only heal." Amy informed her.
"You did what?" Vicky asked in alarm as she looked at Taylor.
"I limited Lisa's powers so she no longer is suffering brain damage. I changed Amy's powers so rather than full scale biomancy, she can only return a person to their natural state, or to put it more simply to heal."
*Power Buy Attempt 1.5.8 Heightened Reactions IV (+200) +200 Tax. Bought. Banked 0 points.*
Taylor felt her powers expand and she picked up the last level of Heighten Reactions, now she would get warnings hours before any danger to her or anything that was hers, and clear warnings five seconds before she was attacked.
It was a nice upgrade, but it was also the end of that path. She found it a bit of a shame, it was a strong precog power.
"I would like her to do the same procedure to you Vicky. She can give you proper control over your aura. Make it so you don't have to constantly keep fighting to keep it suppressed." Amy explained.
"It is easier if I just cut out your aura completely. Restrictions like that are much easier. But I could do what Amy explained if you want to keep it in some form."
"She already the procedure to Lisa, and I confirmed it worked and was safe with my own power Vicky before I let her use it." Amy informed her sister.
Taylor watched as Vicky bounced the idea between the two of them for a minute, then looked thoughtful.
"I rather like my Aura, so I like to keep it. But better control over it would be nice as well. Sure why not?" Vicky agreed.
"Of course." Taylor agreed. "Let's head into the medical bay and get it started."
0o0
After Vicky's power had been removed, Taylor woke the girl to explain what would be required to give her back the same power before, just like she had done with Lisa. Vicky was a lot harder to bring around even with the facts about the aliens and it took a few hours to bring her around.
Amy helped, and with the aid of her sister, Vicky ended up deciding on going the same catgirl route with a similar trainable but lower level power like Lisa had, rather then something completely different like Amy ended up with.
And thus Taylor ended up making Vicky into another cat girl, she didn't take long to decide to join up as a herald once she learned about the true threat of the aliens and the safety provided to her family if she joined up.
Taylor left Vicky's training to Amy, letting Lisa focus entirely on tracking down whatever loose ends Coil still had left dangling while Taylor put all of her own efforts into her weapon.
Once the device was done, she would be able to use it as a reference to make a shell to transfer Dragon into and out of her passenger that ran most of her systems.
0o0
Taylor was in the middle of working on the foundation systems that she would use to grow the AI when Lisa showed interrupting her.
"Taylor?"
"What is it Lisa?" Taylor asked, stopping building and turned to look at the girl.
"I found something in Coil's base that forces our hand and makes us act now."
Lisa paused until Taylor gave her a slight nod to continue.
"Coil kidnapped the mayor's niece, Dinah Alcott. She is also a parahuman, I saw her a few…" Lisa had to pause as she tried to take the time acceleration into account. "...hours ago, but they only announced her missing a few minutes ago."
On seeing the frown on Taylors face, Lisa continued.
"Coil has her in his medical bay and is giving her strong painkillers according to my powers."
"Lisa, it's fine. I don't expect you to know everything, even with your powers." Taylor interrupted Lisa before she could go deeper into justifying why she waited. "So long as you promptly correct things like this it's adequate enough for now. I wouldn't have suspected a parahuman in coil's medical bay to be a prisoner either."
Taylor paused then asked.
"Do you know her powers?"
"Some sort of thinker power, but thats all I can extract from the data on the sensors." Lisa answered. "The painkillers are to treat the pain she suffers from the use of her powers, but now I think Coil's also taking advantage of the fact that they are addictive if given long term. You're not supposed to keep someone on them for more than a few days."
Taylor glanced at her weapon and let out a sigh of disappointment. She had a temporal acceleration of 100 times and yet she still didn't have enough time to get her stuff done before things came up. It was the day of the truce, although it had actually happened even yesterday, Ziz attack was officially 'today' as they dated it by the local time.
Taylor was tempted to ask exactly when Coil had Dinah kidnapped retaliative to Ziz's attack, but she decided that didn't really change anything. If she was to call the Protectorate for help about this, it was something she could potentially do as the crime was kidnapping and it was too close to the endbringer attack.
They would react right away, and if it had been after Coil had learned about the Ziz attack, it would be enough for the PRT to view it as a truce violation and get the Triumvirate to show up to deal with it themselves.
She didn't want to do that and risk something being done to Dinah that she couldn't stop without massive fallout. Sedatives could be very quickly turned into a lethal poison and unless she left Dinah in Coil's care for at least a few more days from her perspective, Taylor couldn't be certain every agent of Coil's in the PRT would be handled. It would only take one missed agent to alert Coil about the incoming attack.
She couldn't risk a formal notice to the currently understaffed PRT as it was almost guaranteed to leak to the moles and then to Coil by the time she cleaned them all up.
The risk of such was too great. She couldn't gamble on him getting away when an innocent kid would suffer if she guessed wrong.
*Power Buy Attempt 2.1.41 Recyclotron (200). Not Bought. Banked 100 points.*
Taylor briefly focused on the perk she missed, it just let her recycling things which she could already do in many different ways, so she let it go.
"I'm going to go arrest Coil now."
"Now?"
"I'm not willing to wait while he has Dinah. I will just toss him into a prison cell, take away his power and then we figure out what to do with him later. "
0o0
As Selene wanted to keep the transporters hidden for now, which would include any teleport like effect, she was forced to enter Coil's base by herself on foot.
But that didn't mean she had to use the door. Back when she started her Moon base, she was able to build a pick letting her carve out tunnels kilometers deep within hours.
But now she didn't even need to do that. Using a Storage device to project a transmutation cycle, she just transfigured the rock a fair distance away from Coil's base into a smooth tunnel and then walked down the ramp.
Coil wasn't located at the lowest part of his base. Rather he was closer to the center. The layers under his office were for supplies and infrastructure.
Likewise Dinah was in the medical wing, and as this was a repurposed Endbringer shelter, the medical wing was also in the center level.
Coil's office was near the 'back' of the level near his escape tunnel, and the medical wing was in the center of said level to keep it as close to equidistant to the rest of the base as possible.
This all meant that there was no good way to head straight to Dinah and Selene was not going to risk some deadman switch that was missed going off his office causing the kid harm.
Lisa was standing by at the transporter controls should something happen to Dinah just in case but Selene was confident that emergency measures would not be needed.
Arriving at the end of the ramp Selene stopped at the base's walls. She did a quick check with her scanner to make sure she was still alone at her target point. She quickly transmuted a hole, stepped in, and closed it behind her.
While Lisa was standing by on the transporter controls, she was also making use of Selene's hacking suite VI to live edit or spoof all security systems in place, the level of technology used in the base's security was quite primitive even considering some of the tinkertech additions and had already fallen to her VI before Selene had even stepped into the building.
Selene kept an eye on her sensors and made her way to Dinah. With the information advantage she casually walked down to the medical bay avoiding all human activity.
She still did this all on foot, even though blank made it impossible to detect her with powers, it didn't make the signs of what she did impossible to find if someone looked there.
Whoever looked would find the tunnel going down, the walls surrounding the tinkertech cover would show different strain readings than usual, deliberately left behind to be detected.
Normally she would cover up any of the traces not covered by blank but this time she left it all behind intentionally to be found by the PRT and even made some things easier to spot to hide the fact she could teleport and be traceless.
0o0
Selene slid into the medical wing silently, all the alarms and electronic locks spoofed.
Dinah wasn't alone in the room. There was a doctor who was tending to Dinah.
Selene wasn't going to wait until he was done. Dinah wasn't left alone for long according to the records and waiting for a gap was pointless.
After a brief glance to confirm that stunning the doctor wouldn't harm Dinah, outside of falling on her at the worst, Selene shot him with her phaser.
The man was down before he even knew she was in the room.
Despite that, Dinah didn't react, and Selene made her way to check on the girl, finding her drugged out of her mind with unsafe levels of medication.
It was likely to ensure that she was addicted to the drug as quickly as possible.
Pulling out theIV Selene pulled out a prefabbed door out of a card, opened it and quickly carried Dinah into the medical wing.
Giving a quick order to Joe to treat Dinah, but keep her under until Selene returned. Selene made her way back to the medical bay, removing the door and the doctor she had stunned and tossing him into a general prison cell she had set up before departing the medical bay to capture all of coil's men. They were easy pickings, all of them went down before even knowing she was there. While Coil had sourced tinkertech armor and weapons they were of middling quality compared to the tech level she was now at.
Then, when the base was empty, Selene made her way to Coil.
0o0
Much like everyone else in the base Selene gave Coil no warning as well, using her full powers to sneak into his office, transmitting a door behind him and then shooting him with a stunner.
As the shot connected the man fell face first on his desk, she rushed over and started to deactivate the safeguards and deadman switches that could not be deactivated remotely, such as the self-destruct.
With those disabled, Selene put Coil into her medical bay, telling Joe to remove his power and keep him under. She wasn't going to let him keep it, not after what he did with it. With that order given, Selene returned to Coil's base, quickly moving the unconscious bodies of everyone in the base into her prison cells. After that she stripped the base down to the bedrock, looting anything useful and destroying the rest. The tinkertech would be nice to reverse engineer even if quite a bit behind her tech, the different principles could prove useful in the future. Coil also had vast databanks of information and contacts that he had collected which would complement her scans and future actions nicely.
0o0
With everyone secured in the prison cell and all tinkertech, information and resources secured for study, Selene made her way to the medical bay to quickly move Coil to a stasis chamber. She would deal with him after she had dealt with Dinah and his men.
Dinah would be returned to her home, and the criminal to the police.
*Power Buy Attempt 2.3.12 Opulent Housing (300). Not Bought. Banked 200 points.*
Selene sighed at the perk that she had failed to acquire. It was an upgrade to her housing complex that would increase the size and quality of the default rooms, a completely worthless perk for her.
Ignoring it and hoping for better luck next time Selene moved Dinah to a normal bedroom in her housing complex, as to not wake the girl around 'tinkertech' and scare her..
Then with a quick hypospray to the neck she woke the girl and waited.
Dinah opened her eyes, looking around in confusion as she moved her hands a bit, then froze, clearly surprised to find that she wasn't strapped down.
The girl frowned and then looked around.
The instant she set her eyes on Selene, she winced in pain and closed her eyes.
Selene reached out for her at once with a healing spell noting that Dinah's power had activated on seeing her and wasn't calming down. The reason was quite clear when she saw that Dinah's power was trying to scan her and failing hard due to blank.
It made Selene rather curious what it was trying to pull that the default autobest for her was apparently causing it to go crazy. She couldn't tell what blank was feeding it back exactly under autobest, only set it to be something else.
Seeing how active Dinah's power was, Selene decided to shift it from autobest to nothing.
Then she had to rush to catch the girl as Dinah passed out.
Selene stared at her for a bit, before making up her mind and carrying the girl back to the medical bay to have her powers removed.
0o0
An hour later Selene was back in the bedroom with Dinah again, this time letting the girl wake up on her own.
Dinah woke up slowly, and Selene let her, watching quietly as the girl opened her eyes and looked around.
When she settled her gaze on Selene again, she flinched as she moved to grab her head, only to stop in surprise when the pain she was expecting didn't come.
"Am I dead?" Dinah asked right after she realized the pain wasn't coming.
"No, you are very much alive."
"But my power is gone, and it felt like it killed me." Dinah noted as she looked down at her hands, and started to poke her body, clearly not believing she was still among the living.
Rather than let the poor girl think she was dead Selene turned on her full power to make sure Dinah understood just the next few words before switching it off again.
"You are alive."
Dinah stopped poking herself and looked at Selene, who continued.
"I did have to remove your power to stop it from killing you, though. I haven't seen anything like that before… I don't suppose you know what happened?"
"You weren't in the pictures."
"What?"
"I see pictures of different futures. Which ones I end up in is hard to control, but I always, or at least I always ended up in one before. You weren't in any of them, as my power looked for you it realised I was not in any of them anymore either."
Selene pondered that a bit, quickly deciding that her autobest never showed Dinah's power anything that put her there, which clearly caused its predictions to break down and react badly. There was no way for Dinah to get to where she was and her power had turned on fully, which negatively impacted Dinah as her mind couldn't handle it.
It wasn't something she wanted to tell Dinah about so after considering her words carefully she noted. "Powers do have limits and I know other precogs have problems with me. Though that doesn't affect you anymore. You don't have powers anymore."
"What happened to them?"
"Since they were hurting you, I removed them."
"For real?" Dinah asked, clearly not believing as she started to tear up.
"For real."
Dinah pushed forward and latched onto Selene, bawling her eyes out as she tried to speak, her sobbing made it difficult to understand but Selene did make out the words 'Thank You'
"You wanted to lose your powers?"
It took a few minutes before Dinah calmed down enough to even answer coherently, and her answer was drawn out with pauses as the girl was completely overwhelmed with joy.
"I haven't been able to do anything since I got them."
Dinah let out a shutter as bad memories came up in her mind, but she quickly pushed though as she continued. "I knew that Coil was going to kidnap me for weeks, but it was the only way I could get some control over my powers and not end up stuck in bed for weeks on end, so I didn't tell anyone."
Dinah came to a pause as she shuttered a bit, then continued on.
"I knew he would drug me, but it was the only way that I could ever hope to control my power in the end… Now that it's gone... it is not coming back, right?"
Selene pulled Dinah in tighter as she gently patted the girl on her back, "Never."
Selene paused carefully as she considered her next actions, it was clearly better to return Dinah to her family ASAP, but there was an issue that she had to address before she could do so.
"Speaking of the power. Who knows you had them?"
"I told my parents but they didn't believe me because the doctor said I didn't have them."
Selene frowned as she asked, "Couldn't you just have proved it?"
There was something about it that didn't add up.
"The Doctor was one of Coil's men. It was how he would learn about me, so I had to do that. I could have proven I had powers afterwards, but that would have put me in the Wards where I would be more or less locked up in a medical room to try and keep my powers under control. But they didn't use the drugs needed to control my powers because they were too additive. Only Coil would do that."
"Even if you asked them?"
"Especially if I asked them. They are too addictive, with Coil I could get them as I needed them."
Selene gave a nod, "Alright, well in any case don't tell anyone you really had powers."
"I promise, are you going to take me home now?"
"Of course." Selene agreed on seeing that Dinah was not lying responded with ."Lets get you home."
*Power Buy Attempt 3.9.3 Master Builder (Transformers) (400). Not Bought. Banked 300 points.*
As Selene helped Dinah out of the room, she focused on the perk her powers had attempted to acquire. It was about Transformer technology and she could tell that with this perk she could build nearly anything from the series.
The Transformer series was one of those high tech settings that made Star Trek look primitive with what they had access to, and drawing on that technology would let her scale things up even more.
Given the low cost to secure it and what she would gain, Selene locked the perk in, deciding to hold off on building her Legendary Weapon until after she acquired this perk. The boost it would bring her should be quite massive.
0o0
Selene returned Dinah back to her very worried parents, telling the two of them that the girl had been kidnapped by Coil who had been planning to use her as a hostage to get concessions out of the Mayor, but Selened had learned of it and saved her and arrested the villain who she was going to turn over to the police.
Coil wasn't publicly known to have powers after all. So when she told the PRT later that she had arrested Coil and his gang for kidnapping Dinah and turned them all over to the police, they wouldn't realize that Coil was a parahuman and should have been handled by them. She would hand over Coil's body double and claim he was the real Coil, which would only make it look like the real Coil had slipped from her grip.
The real him would stay in a prison cell waiting for her to turn him over once she was comfortable with revealing the fact that she could remove powers.
Dinah had promised not to tell anyone and even if she did tell anyone it was unlikely anyone would believe her.
After returning Dinah, a quick stop by the police station had her turning over every one of Coil's men. Arrested under her Guild Authority, which took several hours in the real time as they were all processed with her there.
Selene handed over the list of each of their crimes and a signed confession to the police, which included aiding kidnapping of a child, she made certain that the justification was cited as a truce breaking crime. The whole process was made trival by the fact that Coil kept all incriminating information about the people under him for insurance. Selene didn't even have to falsify the confession Coil had each of his men sign one to ensure loyalty.
With that done, Taylor returned to her warehouse to ponder next steps.
Lisa was busy defusing what was left of Coil's traps, so bringing her in on the Coil interrogation would have to wait .
Taylor supposed she could question Coil without her, but decided a more efficient use of her time was handling the Travelers first.
A mental glance showed Taylor that with the time elapsed they had more less decided to take her up on the offer.
As she made her way over to their prison, she accelerated the time they were experiencing so from their point of view, they would have been in there several days before she 'dealt with coil' rather than just a few hours.
If they agreed to join her properly they would learn about the time acceleration anyway. If they wanted to be turned over to the PRT, she would put them on ice and then turn them over in a few days to make sure they didn't find out about the time manipulation.
0o0
Selene let time return to normal as she made her way into the house the Travelers were locked up in.
Only a few of them were in the living room when she entered, but a quick call out brought the rest of the group out of the various other rooms of the house to meet her.
Once they had all gathered, Selene started.
"Coil has been arrested and turned over to the PRT. Which means times up and I need your answers. What will be it, your powers or your freedom?"
"I don't like it, but I will give up my powers." Franis noted.
His statement was echoed quickly by everyone else with powers. Selene gave a nod. They were not happy about it but they believed in the fact that she could get them home.
"Good, Oliver, Noelle. You two can stay here, the rest of you come with me."
0o0
Selene didn't bother to speed up in the house so from their perspective she returned a few minutes later with the rest of the Travelers.
"You changed your mind?"
"No, it doesn't take the Doctor that long to remove powers." Selene answered before the rest of the group could ask.
"So, now that you have all lost your old powers, let's talk about possibility of new ones."
"New ones?" Franis said, clearly interested.
*4/5 charges*
Selene looked over at Noelle, before she started to explain. "It should be rather clear that powers born from your passengers, more accurately parasites, have a lot of problems as was evident by what was done to Noelle. The fact all of yours were chosen by Ziz herself should tell you a lot about how they are normally given out. It's going to be a few months before I can return you home, and I would much rather you are able to do tasks for me in that timeframe. I can give you new, better powers, but I expect you use them as I dictate until after I return you home, at which point you are free to do as you please. Those that agree to these terms will be allowed to leave to go outside more or less freely, those that don't will remain in here until I am able to return you to Earth Aleph. Oh, and to make it clear, if you don't accept my terms in the next 2 days. I don't know how long it will take, so your agreement now is for an uncertain amount of time that may be days, or months, however long it takes me to finish the portal for you. In case it takes me longer to make the portal the contact will only be for a few years."
"What powers are you offering us exactly?"
"A tinkertech energy that behaves like magic."
"Magic?"
"Magic." Selene confirmed as she held up her hand, generating a small blue ball of magic above it. "It's far weaker but far more flexible than your old powers, depending on a mix of the strength of the tinkertech tool I will give you and skill. But keep in mind these powers can't be used without the tools. The level of Tools that I will give to you depends on how well you carry out your duties, and if you abuse your powers I can and will take back the powers. Without your devices you can't use magic. With them, your able to use magic which would give you a low ranking across most of the PRT classifications, Brute, Mover, Striker, Shaker, Blaster, Breaker, Thinker and Stranger are easy. The others would require me making new spells for you. None of you will be as strong as you used to be even if you focus on one aspect."
"And we get stronger the more we do for you."
"To a point, yes. Past a certain point, no, I am only giving more power to those that serve me for life, and I am not willing to even entertain that for any of you yet, so don't ask. Prove yourself worthy in your normal service and when I find a way to get you home I will offer it to those that I trust then, but only those I trust and only then."
"I can't think of any reason to refuse." Franis noted, and his words were quickly echoed by those around him.
Selene glanced around them, finding their agreement truthful. With a nod she continued.
"Right, in this case we need to bring you all to the medical bay again to grant you this power. Come along now."
This would give a good chance of them joining up and even if the plan fell through it was no loss as the entire magic system was covered under blank as it was reverse engineered by her.
0o0
After installing linker cores in all the members of the Travelers Taylor left them sedated, with time slowing down as much as possible for them as she made her way over to Lisa to find out how the girl had been doing.
"How is it going?" Taylor asked as she glanced around Coil's office. Although she could have easily had Lisa do it remotely her ability to connect the dots got better the closer she was to the source.
Minor connections that even the best sensors and algorithms couldn't pick up on, and with a slightly upgraded Onmi-tool on her wrist Lisa was able to remain connected back to her computer network and sensors anyway.
"I disarmed everything that I found that doesn't require us to arrest his various moles and agents. Coil made certain that they wouldn't accept new orders from him unless they are in this office. None of those failsafes will trigger for at least a week, so we have time there."
"So, now we just need to talk to Coil to make sure we got everything?"
Lisa turned to look at Taylor. "I'm not sure my power is up to seeing through all of his lies and what he is hiding just yet."
"We can get around that."
"How?" Lisa asked confused.
"Tell him everything you disarmed and then ask him if there is anything left. I can tell if he lies there. I also synthesized some truth serum a while back which may prove useful."
Lisa paused to think about it, then nodded her head as she noted. "Yes. That makes sense. I'm done here, let's go interrogate Coil."
Lisa got up from Coil's chair and walked into the door that Taylor had come in by, as she did that, Taylor felt her power secure the perk she had been wanting for.
*Power Buy Attempt 3.9.3 Master Builder (Transformers) (400). + 100 Tax Bought. Banked 0 points.*
Focusing on the perk she just picked up, Taylor had a mix of surprise and lack of surprise at the vastness of what was included.
The perk had hinted that it was all Transformer technology and she hadn't quite realized just how much transformer technology there was. From simple data devices, all the way up to planet destroying weapons, everything was included in full detail.
The only thing missing from this was how to create the spark that brought life to Transformers, but even that was something her other perks helped with. Through them, she could build transformer bodies and put AIs in them. It wouldn't be a true transformer as they still wouldn't have the Spark, but Taylor knew that you have to be rather purest about things to not make it work.
Smiling at how vast an upgrade her tech had just gotten, Taylor followed Lisa to the prison area as she started to plan away at the weapon she would build, as she had expected the Transformer technology helped with the baseline, but there was a lot that it didn't touch. It didn't handle magic directly and so a large number of parts for her weapon was still sourced from her other perks. Improved by the new knowledge she got, but still at the core other things combined into one.
0o0
Switching into her Armor, Selene placed the still unconscious Coil on a chair before binding him to it.
Giving Lisa a look, Selene waited until the girl nodded her head before injecting Coil with the antidote to the sedative he had been given, moving to stand behind him, Lisa moving to do the same as they waited for the man to stir.
Coil quickly stirred and Selene watched as he looked around first confused, then started to panic.
"I am sure you are wondering where your power is." Selene spoke up causing Coil to try and turn to look at her, only to fail because of the through bindings.
So she slowly circled around him, coming into view as she continued.
"I have removed it, villains like you don't deserve to have any powers."
"Selene, or should I say, Taylor Hebert." Coil addressed her, his tone wasn't just unusually calm, but Selene noted that Coil seemed rather confident given that to his pespective he was suddenly without his powers and tied down to a chair with no warning.
"To you, I am Selene."
"I think I will call you Taylor. That is why I am here, and not in the PRT custody after all. You don't want them to know who you are. And the fact that you can remove powers, I am sure they would be extremely interested in that."
Selene grew increasingly curious, what was making him so confident, Coil was expecting to be rescued now, and he was just humoring her until it happened.
"Who do you expect is going to try and rescue you?"
"Ah, now that would be telling. Not that I won't tell you, but just not yet."
"They know if you say their name? Is that how they know you need help?" Selene observed, a smile on her face, hidden by her helmet forming. There was no way any parahuman power could break though her Blank ability.
"Of course, but they only show up when I invoke their name, and as powerful as you are, they are even more powerful."
"If they are so powerful, why would they care about you? Other than to cut loose ends?" Selene asked as she wondered if this group behind Coil was somehow related to the same group that was selling powers. When she was near Coil she had noticed his power was from a vial too.
"Why, I would have expected you of all people would know that already Taylor. Without people to control, you have no real power. It doesn't matter how powerful your abilities are, if no one will act on your word. And for the right price, anyone can be brought, even you."
Selene could see as plain as day what Coil was doing here. He was trying to find something he could leverage, be it with her, or with those behind him. He was quite certain he already had something of value to them. Value enough that they would save him from this, but he wanted more to make things better for him.
On a hunch, Selene decided to ask.
"Let me guess, they sold you powers in exchange for your loyalty? A vial that you had to drink that let you perceive other timelines?"
Coil hid his surprise well, but Selene could still see that it put him a bit off edge. He mentally regrouped with no visible sign outside as he noted.
"Correct, and all I have to do is invoke their name and they show up. And they take from you what they wish, unless we strike a deal first so I don't say the name out loud. Let me go, we talk terms and I don't call upon you. If say their name , they will twist you into whatever little puppet they like and even I won't be able to stop them then."
"You have seen them do that before."
"Many times. You don't figure out how to grant powers without human experimentation, both on those with and without powers, and a cape like you that managed to spoof thinker abilities, would certainly be of great interest to them."
"And you think my protections wouldn't stop them from finding us?" Selene noted
"You may be good Selene, but you have been on their radar since you got powers. Your protections were not perfect at the start, which is all they needed. They would know that you kidnapped me, and they are just waiting for me to say their name."
Selene could feel how much confidence Coil had in his words, If she wasn't sure in the invulnerability of her blank she would have been worried.
*Power Buy Attempt 2.3.16 Unique Servants (100), Requires 2.3.15 Servants' Quarters (200). Not Bought. Banked 100 points.*
Selene metnally sighed as her powers tried to pick up a perk and failed, and decided to answer Coil.
"Go ahead, say their name Coil. You are greatly underestimating me, they won't even get through the door before they go down."
"I think you know I am telling the truth."
"Are you afraid to say their name?"
"I am merely offering you one last chance to change your mind."
" Go on, say whatever name you wish. It doesn't matter here."
"Very well. Cauldron."
Coil flinched after he said the name,Selene could see he was expecting something bad to happen not just to her but to him as well.
There was a drawn out pause, and Selene watched as Coil went from very assured to increasingly confused.
"I guess my protections are better than this 'Cauldron's' scanners." She finally injected. "But enough about your trick. I want to know what every single safeguard and deadman switch you set up is."
"And why would I tell you that?" Coil noted.
"Well, I don't need your cooperation. I just thought you like to make it less painful on you. Speaking of painful, I do have someone you wants to meet you."
Lisa walked around Coil to look at him, and Selene found the look of surprise he gave when he realized who it was.
"I am sure you remember Tattletale, or rather Lisa, you might even know her as Sarah. She decided to flip to my side, and told me everything about you, she has been using her own power to uncover your safeguards. Now we just need to make sure there wasn't anything we missed. She will start to list them off for you, and we see what left over when she's done."
0o0
After having Lisa list off everything she had found, and confirming based on Coil's reaction that had been everything, Taylor left Lisa to talk to Coil about whatever else she could get out of him, with plans to put Coil into long term stasis after she was done.
"The truth serum is on this card lisa, use it if needed, I want all the information he has on Cauldron, any hidden caches still out there and any information that was not on his databanks. Plus whatever else useful you think you can find."
Before heading off to disappear for subjective months in a building spree Taylor settled into one of her rooms to think about what she had learned from Coil.
Cauldron, Coil was certain they would save him from her.
They sold powers to people.
Taylor hadn't seen any hints of them beforehand, which indicated that they were well removed from events, her thoughts went to Alexandria.
Given how high ranked the woman was, and the fact she wasn't a natural trigger, but rather had ingested a vital. Taylor couldn't see how she wasn't connected to Cauldron or at least knew of them.
She also had to wonder exactly what their real goals were. They backed Coil, but the nature of the aliens and the fact that most vial capes were in the Protectorate so far, might indicate that they were treating Coil as more of a necessary evil and less as desired.
A part of Taylor was tempted to turn off blank for the sound and speak the name and see what would happen, but she already knew that was reckless and stupid. She wanted her weapon to be safe first, and there were other aspects to prepare for as well. At the very least she would be in a deathtrap stronghold before she even attempted to call the name outside blank.
Taylor made her way over to the part of her warehouse where she would be constructing her base legendary weapons, duplicating them, then growing out the AIs for them to get started. Coil was already been integrated under the full time acceleration in case Lisa had to do something afterwards, so Taylor didn't have to worry about Lisa not being done by the time she had finished her own preparations.
0o0
Monday, February 28th, 2011
0o0
Time flowed rapidly, nearly a year passed of accelerated time, Taylor ran her fingers over her completed weapon, all that was left was for her to give the command for it to fully turn on.
To a normal person's vision, it just looked like a Katana, it was only with access to some sort of sensor that the hints of what was inside could even be noticed.
Inside the outer shell of the blade were countless microscopic intricate runes, circuitry and other magitech systems that made it an extremely powerful device, it housed an AI that had yet to be turned on. Every aspect of the AIs system was carefully blended with the sword perfectly to the point that the AI may well be the same as the sword. Unfortunately this meant that the AI could not leave the sword without significant modification and butchering of the sword.
Not because Taylor had restricted it deliberately, but because the technology couldn't grant it such core controls over the systems and allow it to leave. Its core processes were parts of the sword after all.
"Are you going to keep staring at it, or are you going to turn it on?" Lisa injected and Taylor looked away from the blade to the girl she had just spent a subjective year more or less alone with.
The various months had been broken up by others showing up, but real world commitments outside of the warehouse by Vicky meant she couldn't stick around for most of those.
Amy had decided she didn't want to spend subjective months with just the three of them either and had bowed out. One could hardly blame her, even Lisa had taken breaks in between, they did not have her mental perks after all.
"She will be the first of many. Yours will be next." Taylor noted as she grabbed the blade by the hilt.
*Power Buy Attempt 2.2.3 Realistic Ground Cover (100) Bought. Banked 100 points.*
Reroll since last perk was fully bought/brought to some level of ranking and points > 0
*Power Buy Attempt 3.3.5 Anaheim Degree (Gundam UC) (200). Not Bought. Banked 100 points.*
Taylor let out a sigh as she felt her power pick up a perk. She had been sort of hoping that when her weapon would be complete she would get something nice out of it, but the perk she just got amounted to the fact that now she could change her warehouse floor into dirt.
The perk that it bounced off was a repeat from long ago, and this time Taylor decided it was worth locking it.
Taylor returned her full attention to her weapon, having stopped because she would need every bit of focus as she activated the device in case anything went wrong.
She was fairly certain that nothing would go wrong, but she wasn't willing to risk it.
Not that the AI named Susan quite existed just yet.
Picking the weapon off the stand it had been resting on, Taylor gripped it by both hands as Lisa took a few needlessly big steps backwards.
Focusing on the blade in her hands, Taylor first stirred her familiar, as she would need all the power she could draw on for this, before she started to pour all of her various magics into the blade. Underneath her feet a massive intricate magic circle appeared.
As she continued to pour the energy in, Taylor felt Susan's systems start to come to life, fueled entirely by the mana she was pouring in; once enough system were online, the energy was redirected to various capacitors.
The capacitors slowly filled, as more and more systems were brought online. Systems required to maintain the state of the device would turn on once the reactor inside the core was kickstarted by the full capacitors.
It was a continuous symphony of activations, each system building on each other, fueled entirely by Taylor's own magic until the capacitors had been filled.
As soon as the last one had been filled, Taylor sent a strong pulse of magic into her device as she called out.
"Awaken, The Divine Wind, Susanoo."
With a shockwave of magic that dissipated from the magic dampers Taylor had set up, Susanoo fully came online. With it, she felt her clothing be replaced by the barrier jacket that the device would provide, completely automatic and while the defenses of her barrier jacket didn't compare to her armor, it was a purely magical construct that could be deployed in an instant by anyone with such a device.
Taylor did not expect to get much use out of it herself because she would almost always have her armor. She had learned to include a few sets of her armor in her cards after she had been swapped out of her armor by the Travelers.
The default Barrier Jacket was programmed to look identical to the uniform of her heralds.
With that, Taylor fell silent and waited, having already told Lisa to stay quiet after Susan or rather Susanoo awakened.
Taylor could feel as Susan slowly started to study the world she now found herself in, and she let the AI do so undisturbed. Taylor had tried to program the AIs memory banks ahead of time with enough information that there wouldn't be anything she needed to answer the AI. But understanding what it had been given would take some time.
Susanoo was really a marvel of technology and magic, Taylor had pulled on all her techbases and magic to make the AI powerful and versatile as possible. These AIs by their very nature were absolutely loyal and the neural structures Taylor had used had incorporated ideas from her leadership perk to make loyalty even more intertwined with its core systems. The fact that it was running on her magic energy also helped.
As Taylor waited, she noted how she could already tell what Susan was thinking, being intimately familiar with her, despite the fact she hadn't existed before now.
Taylor could see that the AI was getting close to addressing her, when it projected the image of a small girl above the blade, dressed in the same uniform that Taylor herself was wearing.
It was just a simple illusion but one that she had programmed ahead of time. Both the image of Susan and her outfit. It was possible for Susan to change those, She could even project a construct and wield herself.
Susan's access to the construct projection systems was partly restricted. It was a restriction that Susan could choose to ignore in some circumstances. But the partial restriction was to help Susan grow into her new awareness, settling on what easy to do first. The restrictions would automatically lift as she got comfortable with the systems.
Restrictions such as the simple illusion rather than a full construct.
Taylor watched as Susan spun around a few times above the blade, absorbing the new information flow that the avatar gave her, her last spin came to a stop looking right at Taylor.
Their gazes met, and after a draw out pause, Susan bowed her head and greeted Taylor.
"Good Morning, Master."
"Good morning, Susanoo. How are you feeling?"
Taylor already knew of the answers, but the conversation would speed up the adaptation process.
"According to the provided data, all of my systems are operating normally."
"Yes of course. Is it alright if I call you just Susan?"
"You may call me whatever you like, Master."
Taylor nodded, not that surprised by such a reply. As much as she could program Susan ahead of time, until Susan had at least some new memories and experience behind her, she wouldn't be quite as life-like. Although she wasn't exactly a template with how much customization had already gone into her, the real Susan was something that would take years of experience to grow into, much like any child did.
"Of course." Taylor agreed with a nod. "Are you able to take your compact form?"
"I am." Susan agreed.
* 2/3 charges*
With a shimmering of blue light down the blade, the sword disappeared and reformed as a necklace around Taylor's neck. It looked like a simple silver cross, a simple design that wasn't supposed to draw attention.
The Avatar of Susan remained floating nearby, clearly waiting for praise for what she had done.
"Well done Susan." Taylor offered, watching as the AI smiled and blushed slightly at that. "Let's do a basic run through of your systems."
"Then we can start on Meg?" Lisa asked.
Taylor looked over at the girl, who hadn't been that happy that Taylor had focused entirely on her own weapon first, though she also understood that due to the level of detail and design required, splitting her attention while creating it would have meant building both devices at the same time would have taken at least four times longer than building them one at a time.
Meg would of course be loyal to Taylor as well, Lisa would be given level two access. These were strategic arms of mass destruction after all.
"Yes we can, but not right away. I have other time sensitive things I need to attend to first."
"Right. Right." Lisa agreed with a nod.
"But first, Susan let's get started." Taylor turned her attention back to the AI, who nodded clearly curious what would happen next.
0o0
End of Chapter 12
0o0
Interlude 10: Henry Anderson
0o0
A knock at the door caused Henry to look up from the book, frowning as he did such. Any of his friends that stopped by knew better then to knock on his door. The only people that knocked on doors in this neighborhood were the police, and on hearing a knock all the criminal elements would panic and go into hiding.
If it wasn't the police afterwards they tended to take it out on whomever had let one of their guests knock on their door.
Henry would have found the concept rather stupid but after the long time he had spend here he knew that knocking was rare and now had been associated with the police executing a warrent. So a knock was often followed by a broken door and guns being pointed at you.
But he couldn't see why the police would be at his door.
Another round of knocking rounded out, this one much stronger, it made Henry get up feeling quite annoyed at whomever it was. It almost certainly wasn't someone looking for donations, and even if it was, he already donated all he could of his paycheck without going bankrupt.
He knew he lived in the worst, if the cheapest, part of the city that still had people living in habitable buildings, and he was quite sure the only reason he had managed to not have what little items he owned stolen was that he kept his head down, was kind and worked at the youth center which was considered neutral ground and thus he was tolerated by the gangs who ran the streets.
The local drug dealers would certainly blame him for the knocking and bringing trouble down on the building even if the knocking has nothing to do with law enforcement.
Stopping at the door, Henry peered out the eyehole carefully, doing his best to not make a sound. It was entirely possible this was someone looking to see if anyone was home before they broke in to rob the place.
His breath froze as he saw a figure covered in metal, it was a Parahuman. Normal people didn't wear metal armor, and his quick glance through the blurry eyehole showed it wasn't some no name parahuman either.
Random tinkers did not end up with armor that looked that nice.
"Mr. Anderson, I am Selene, a member of the Guild, and I wish to talk to you." The woman in the armor addressed him though the door, causing Henry to pull back slightly. She had spoken as if she knew he was there and looking at her, despite the fact he was hidden behind the door.
Henry paused as mind caught up with what she had said, and he moved back to peer out the eyehole at her again, recalling she had claimed to be a part not of the Protectorate, but the Guild. They only dealt with major threats, why was a Guild member looking for him?
He looked her armor up and down with what he would like to say was a skilled eye, but he knew very little of real armor construction so all he could say was that it looked impressive.
Neat and clean lines with designs on the armor that only someone with real resources behind them could ever hope to add.
It was not the armor of some random person. Although there were more costume designs then parahumans in the Protectorate, they all followed some simple design rules, and that was that either costumes came together in a professional way, or they were pure tinker tech.
Although a good costume of itself wasn't proof of being in the Protectorate, not having one was proof otherwise.
"I also know you are there." Selene continued, sounding quite amused.
Henry tensed up, his first thought was that he wouldn't get in trouble with his neighbors after all. Well the Guild wasn't exactly the Police, they would much rather have police, or even the military show up any day than the Guild.
Shaking his head to clear that thought, Henry's mind rushed around as he tried to figure out what she wanted with him, and how to best handle this.
If she wasn't lying about being a guild member, she could just have him arrested by asking the local police, she wouldn't even need a warrant. But even if she was lying, the only hope he would have of resisting her would be to call the PRT and hope she didn't cause him harm until they got there. He knew well enough that attempting to stop criminal tinkers would just see bystanders hurt, and the only way to keep others uninvolved would be to just submit, as much as he rather stop a criminal, he wouldn't do such at the cost of some bystander, even if they were almost all criminals around here.
On recalling that the PRT wouldn't ever show up in this neighborhood, Henry sighed and opened the door.
If she was a guild member she had the power of the law, if she wasn't he couldn't count on what was illegal to protect him.
"How can I help you?" Henry asked as soon as the door was open, allowing him to get a better look at Selene.
Although he didn't voice it, he noted that without the distortion of the eyehole in the door, Selene looked even better. Although he couldn't recall when the last time he had seen someone in full armor had been, he did recall that they hadn't looked half this good.
The Parahuman looked like she had just walked out of a movie, one where she had been sitting on a throne in her armor, rather than one of the palace guards, and she seemed to carry the same weight in her posture and step. There was something about the way she stood, how the armor rested on her body, how it moved, some sort of aura that he couldn't point to but somehow could see around her came together that made him want to call her a Queen.
Henry had to give it to whomever designed her costume. They must have been told to make her look like someone of great authority and had exceeded all exceptions. If she started calling out orders in an emergency he would have done what she said without a second thought.
"That is best handled inside, may I come in?" Selene's tone indicated it wasn't much of a question, and Henry nodded and indicated for her to enter.
After she was inside, he closed the door and looked over at her.
"Mr. Anderson, to start with I am familiar with your background. How you supposedly killed someone and were found guilty, but I also know that the evidence against you was faked and your really innocent."
Henry's heart started to sour at that, but before Henry could comment on that, Selene pressed on, bringing his hopes to a crash.
"Of course, this is all thinker gained knowledge and thus not legal evidence unless a parahuman was involved in the crime."
"I have already come to accept what happened to me and forgiven those who framed me. Please don't get my hopes up."
"That was just making it clear that I am familiar with your real background, not what your files say. Which is what brings me here."
Selene paused, and clearly shifted her head to look to the side, Henry gaze followed where she was looking to see that the parahuman was looking at a picture of his wife and daughter.
His wife, Kate, he had married her after he got out of jail, and their daughter was one of the few good things in his life after his false conviction basically destroyed any chance of a real job.
A convicted felon couldn't find any good work in this society no matter what their qualifications were.
"You were such a promising young man, top of your class, kind to a fault, I am sure had you not been in the wrong place at the wrong time, you would likely be running a research team, rather than just the simple lab work that you were doing before the trial. That is why I am here, I am in need of people, diamonds in the rough like you."
Selene paused to look back at Henry and continued.
"I wish to hire you to lead a research effort into stopping the Endbringers. Your lack of experience in the field is a plus rather than a minus. If those with experience could have found the answer they would have already. It should hopefully go without saying that such a research team will not only be far away from here, but your real location will be classified. Those that decide to join up will have to leave friends behind, and it will be unlikely that they can come back, but I am more than willing to let you bring your family along. They will live in base housing and your daughter will get a far better education then the local schools can provide. Far safer too."
"Seems, almost too good to be true."
"Of course you think that." Selene nodded. "I come out of nowhere, offering you everything you dreamed of. A chance at your old life back, meaningful work for you and your wife. A proper education for your daughter, not in this crime ridden city. Trust me, this isn't some shady deal. You don't have to answer right away, or even within the next few months. But I can't promise the chief researcher role if you delay your answer for too long, but the offer for lower positions will remain open. Take all the time you need to consider it, ask at the local PRT office, or even call up the Guild. I will leave the unclassified documentation related to the job with you as well. I have told them I am recruiting and while they can't tell classified information, at least nothing more than what's in the files I am leaving you, you can confirm with them if that would make you more assured of your choice. Your just one of about a hundred different families or so that I am looking to recruit for this recruitment cycle. I am sure you will come to see reason. Now, I apologize for not sticking around, but you're not the only person I need to talk to today. Good day, Mr. Anderson. I am sure you will make the right choice."
0o0
End of Interlude 10
0o0
1.5.8 Heightened Reactions IV (400)
You are more aware of your surroundings and the dangers around you.
○ III: You are precognitatively aware of danger. If an attack or hazard is going to appear, you are aware of the general direction of the danger approximately one second before it actually appears.
○ IV: As tier III, but you begin to receive warnings hours ahead of the danger. These warnings generally start vague as a sense of unease or troubled dreams, but get slightly more direct as the danger continues to approach. Approximately five seconds before the danger appears, you gain a clear warning akin to that from tier III.
3.9.3 Master Builder (Transformers) (400)
You've been programmed with mastery of Cybertronian science allowing you to jury-rig any tech you see, as well allowing you to quickly build even the most complex Cybertronian tech within a reasonable time period. Smaller devices are almost instant, larger devices take some time and more components. However with enough material you can build a temporary space bridge.Despite your mastery of Cybertonian science, creation of a Spark and therefore intelligent life, organic or inorganic is beyond you.
2.2.3 Realistic Ground Cover (100)
Sick and tired of linoleum or concrete? This is the one for you. Now your Personal Reality floor can be turned into any naturally occuring terrain type, in sections, or roads and paths of your design. Any dirt or dust that would be created by this is magically taken care of… unless you don't want it to be.
