- Location
- New Zealand
She can steal skills from people if they know something she doesn't. A different art-style, a different fighting style, different words. Otherwise, no. She can't steal what she already has.
Claim The Spoils (Victor!Taylor)
- Thread starter Lokimotion
- Start date
- Superhero
-
- Tags
- worm altpower!taylor
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Well, we knew this moment was coming. Taylor hasn't actually done anything completely irreversible yet, as I don't think she's "fully" stolen any skills from anyone, it's just a real inconvenience for the time being for everyone involved. Unfortunately, it might make at least a few of the people stolen from wonder if there's something physically wrong with them- some of the older people might be worried they had a stroke, or something of that nature. But, Taylor's realization of this does mean she can use her power more "offensively" if she finds a reason to...
In any event, glad to see this back.
In any event, glad to see this back.
- Location
- USA
Yeah, stealing from the trio at school, and the other mean girls, especially from Sophia and Emma would be poetic, and deserved.
However, it has to hurt so much, as this is what she was using to deal with her depression and having something that gave so much joy be poisoned like this is heartbreaking.
However, it has to hurt so much, as this is what she was using to deal with her depression and having something that gave so much joy be poisoned like this is heartbreaking.
- Location
- .
Wow the penny finally dropped for her. This should be nice and angsty.
- Location
- Earth
Are we going with a permanent loss/gain in skills or a slow recovery/retention over time here for volunteers/Taylor?
- Location
- New Zealand
Taylor permanently retains some of the skills she takes while the victims recover completely, with the more skill drained form someone the greater the total retention and the longer the recovery time. The Japanese lady and the Korean cook will both take months to recover, and it would have been years if Taylor drained them completely. However, should Taylor never drain Korean language from anybody ever again, she will lose some of her facility with it, but will always retain enough to be conversational in it.
It's nasty that I was looking forward to this moment but,
Muahaha yes she noticed! Crossed the point where they couldn't compensate one loss with another skill! No wonder that left her sick. That'll be a hard guilt to undo, and to steal from gangers she'd have to take on a server amount of risk.
I love the market scenes, seeing how powers shape even common life experiences. Nicely done.
Muahaha yes she noticed! Crossed the point where they couldn't compensate one loss with another skill! No wonder that left her sick. That'll be a hard guilt to undo, and to steal from gangers she'd have to take on a server amount of risk.
I love the market scenes, seeing how powers shape even common life experiences. Nicely done.
eschwartz
Glorious Wordsmith and Author-Whisperer
- Location
- Roundworld
Conditionally dependent on her meeting them again as opposed to avoiding them. OTOH, maybe she'll notice with regard to her fellow students, as they will be a lot harder for her to avoid out of a sense of guilt.
- Location
- USA
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Whew. Well at least she found out now but anything truly terrible happened. I mean what happened was bad. Hmm wonder if she will get the thought to volunteer at nursing homes and Hospice care? Getting some instrument skills and then playing at those places would give her a great 'hunting ground' with minimal impact.
Other then that. Uber might be ultimately and incredible resource for her. Offer to help in some of their more benign schemes (I believe she knows through her Dad one of their 'henchmen'.) in exchange for draining some of Uber's easily replenished skills.
Other then that. Uber might be ultimately and incredible resource for her. Offer to help in some of their more benign schemes (I believe she knows through her Dad one of their 'henchmen'.) in exchange for draining some of Uber's easily replenished skills.
eschwartz
Glorious Wordsmith and Author-Whisperer
- Location
- Roundworld
You mean, except for causing elderly people who already worry about their infirmity, to believe that they suddenly became even less capable than they were before?
- Location
- USA
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Depends on the skills taken. Go to a Veterans Home and many skills that Taylor would have good use of are ones they won't be using again and sometimes shouldn't be using again as it would cause them harm. At a hospice she can take almost any and all skills as frankly those people are there to die. It also would look out of place as both of those places often have groups and people come to visit with the elderly. Its pretty much win-win all around as the people there will appreciate having Taylor around.
eschwartz
Glorious Wordsmith and Author-Whisperer
- Location
- Roundworld
That's pretty dark. Can we end this discussion? It was already discussed more than enough on the very last page, e.g.
- Location
- USA
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I don't think you understand what a Hospice is. These aren't just retirees or veterans. These are people who have little to no hope of recovery and have stopped taking treatment for their ills. Many dedicated hospice facilities only accept patients there when their condition is considered terminal and they have only at best guess only a few days to live. The only medication some of these facilities give there are pain suppressants.
There are other longer term hospice care facilities or ones mixed with nursing homes but all hospice care patients expected to live no longer then 6 months.
eschwartz
Glorious Wordsmith and Author-Whisperer
- Location
- Roundworld
The topic of whether most hospices are heavily abusive places is irrelevant. You don't treat someone like that just because they have a terminal illness.
Likewise, you don't be a skill vampire on them just because "they'll die within six months anyway".
(Actually I don't consider how long they are predicted to live, to be relevant -- whether it is six days, six weeks, or six months. Furthermore, I doubt Taylor has access to those records even if she were inclined to become a morbid creep.)
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Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
well one way to get around the ethics of this is to just ask the people directly. show up in a costume, and ask them if they'd be okay with giving their skills to her. And if people are uncomfortable with that, then she'd just leave and never come back.
Some dying people might be more willing to pass on their skills to someone else than you give them credit for. I had this teacher who were slowly dying of a chronic diease, and she often lamented that she didn't have enough time to pass on all of her knowledge to others. So if Taylor had shown up for her and told her what she could do, I think she'd consent the moment that taylor said she'd learn everything my teacher knew. after all, a lot of people view passing on your skills to others as making your mark in the world.
Some dying people might be more willing to pass on their skills to someone else than you give them credit for. I had this teacher who were slowly dying of a chronic diease, and she often lamented that she didn't have enough time to pass on all of her knowledge to others. So if Taylor had shown up for her and told her what she could do, I think she'd consent the moment that taylor said she'd learn everything my teacher knew. after all, a lot of people view passing on your skills to others as making your mark in the world.
- Location
- USA
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What....? Oh boy. I think this is a personal issue for you that you might want to sort out yourself.
Chapter 7
- Location
- New Zealand
Dad called me in sick on Monday.
I wanted to go to school, to find some way of proving to myself that I had been wrong about my power, but when the time came I just couldn't do it. I ended up just sitting at the kitchen table, unable even to eat breakfast and just clutching at the slowly cooling mug of tea in my hands as if it were somehow the key to finding my way out of this mess.
Occasionally, I took a sip.
I was perversely glad when Dad took one look at me and told me to stay at home. As much as I wanted this to be over, hating the inevitability of what I had to face, I was still dreading going back to Winslow.
My relief was short-lived, however.
The moment Dad left for work the silence in the house became almost oppressive. I started pacing back and forth, twisting my hands and looking for something, anything that might distract me.
I forced down a bowl of cereal, more for the need to occupy myself with something than out of any real hunger I might have, but once that was finished I still had nothing to do. Rifling through my schoolbag I found some homework that I had finished late Friday night and started to go over it.
I didn't think that I would change much, but right now it was something to focus on.
Something that wasn't an old man struggling to speak to his son.
I forced my thoughts away from the image, trying to fill my mind with trigonometry and algebra, and when that didn't work I turned to an English essay I had rushed through. I would take it slower and do it better today.
That thought then spiralled into another and another until I remembered that none of my stolen skills related to literature or essay writing.
It was okay.
This piece of homework was safe for me to redo.
The words swam in front of my eyes and every time I made myself focus on the questions being asked my mind twisted back on itself until everything I tried to write was somehow a crime against somebody else.
It's okay, I tried to tell myself, with little success. You only ever took minor skills from them. Stuff like knowing how to juggle, or sketch.
I took the ability to draw away from an artist.
I flinched at the thought, my pen skating across the page and leaving a messy blue streak across three lines.
I hissed in frustration as I looked at the mess. It meant I would have to redo the entire page.
She painted and used charcoal as well. Sketching was a small part of what she did as an artist. Really it was just the beginner stages that she had moved past.
The feeble excuse withered away even as I thought it.
I took fighting skills from a PRT agent. If he goes up against a villain and is killed, then it's on me.
My pen froze and I shuddered at the thought.
Surely they would send the heroes in against the villains. The PRT are just there as back up. Besides, they have their guns to use. They don't fight with their fists. And that trooper-
Jeremy, my treacherous thoughts stabbed at me.
-wouldn't fight alone. He would have a whole squad as back-up. And he knew loads of martial arts. I didn't take all of it.
The slew of panicked thoughts seemed even more hollow and desperate the longer I thought about them.
The cook who could no longer cook.
The artist who could no longer draw.
The trooper who could no longer fight.
Their faces swam in my mind and my pen creaked in my hand, knuckles white and bloodless around the handle.
It wasn't as bad as that.
I knew it wasn't as bad as that. I had taken bits of them, important bits, I wouldn't deny that, but I had never taken everything from them. I didn't think I had taken most of a given skill from a single person, with the sole exception of the PRT trooper, and in that case I knew for a fact that I hadn't taken most of what he had. I had simply been too busy trying to see what skills everybody else had on offer.
The lady I took Japanese from and the Korean father at the food stall were the only ones I had taken anything significant from, and even then I didn't think I had taken more than half of what they had.
At least, I hoped I hadn't.
Had I?
I turned and threw my pen at the wall, breath coming in short gasps.
I couldn't practice those languages any more. Doing so would just feel wrong, knowing that they were words stolen from someone else. I couldn't practice them, and they would fade away, like everything else I've taken from people, leaving me no better off than before and everyone else worse. They would fade away like they have never been stolen to begin with and everything would have been for nothing.
Crossing the room and stooping to pick up the pen, I paused.
The skills I stole faded away.
They weren't permanent. I knew they weren't permanent because I could feel them getting fainter, ever so slowly, hour by hour in the back of my mind. Just as I knew what skills other people had by reaching out to them, a part of me knew what I had myself.
And if the skills I took weren't permanent for myself, was the theft not permanent for others either? Was it possible that just as the skills left me, they returned to the people I had taken them from?
Inches from the pen, my hand trembled slightly.
Blinking, I collected the pen and returned to the table, carefully laying it down and sitting, my homework disregarded.
I didn't know.
I drummed my fingers on the page in front of me and thought about the people I had reached out to and how I had felt their skills diminishing. Could I also feel their skills returning?
I didn't know.
I hurried to the kitchen, putting the kettle on the boil and rifling through the cupboards for some teabags, my fingers still shaking. I slowly poured the boiling water, trying to force my hands to be steady, and carefully took the cup of black tea back to the table, finding some small measure of comfort in the old ritual.
Sitting down, I leaned over the cup and inhaled, taking a long, deep breath of aromatic steam and holding it for a few seconds, feeling it tickle the back of my throat before I slowly released it.
It hadn't been an issue recently, given how much I was draining from people, but it had bothered me at first that anything I copied (or thought I was copying) faded away after a few days. After the initial elation of having powers, I had been disappointed at how minor they turned out to be. Just knowing what somebody else could do wasn't the kind of ability that would ever have people look up or admire me.
But then I saw how Emma could twist people around her words, convince them to leave a topic alone or focus on something she wanted, and I wished that I could do that as well. Feeling that connection flowing into me had been a revelation, and when what Emma was doing started to make more sense to me, becoming less some unknown social art and more just a matter of presentation, I realised that I could do this stuff as well.
Not very well, and not very easily, but better than I could before.
Of course, actually finding someone prepared to speak to me hadn't been very easy, and the other girls had pounced the moment they saw me trying. The next time Mr Gladly set us a group project, however, keeping the other members of the group on track and working seemed a lot easier than the last time.
As the days went by, I drew on other things, such as calligraphy once I had seen another student practicing their curving, looping script. Watching my own hand-writing change over the course of several sentences had been remarkable, and I couldn't help but giggle to myself, which resulting in me being told off by the teacher and several rounds of stage whispers about how I must be high in class.
Then these gifts started to fade, another disappointment of my powers.
Still, it helped me deal with school when things seemed to be getting too bad. When they verbally harassed me, I just got that much better at dealing with words. When they targeted me too much in Phys Ed I just got better at dodging thrown objects or suspicious fouls. It wasn't much, but the ability to learn how to deal with anything bothering me, as it bothered me? That was very welcome indeed. If that was all my power was, then I could accept that happily.
I took another deep breath, and raised the cup to my lips.
The gifts and knowledge I took from others faded. But when it left me, where did it go to? Did it just vanish, leaving both of us bereft? That would be too cruel, and I didn't think I could bear that. But since it left me, there was a chance, and a good one in my mind, that it returned to the other person. That all I needed to do was wait and everything would be back to normal, with nobody the worse off.
Maybe it wasn't stealing at all, just borrowing.
If that was true, then I hadn't ruined anybody after all; I had just... temporarily inconvenienced them.
All was not lost.
The situation was salvageable.
I breathed in again and took another sip of tea, feeling my heartbeat calm as I lowered the cup to the table.
The surface of the drink was rippling, like a puddle in rain.
My hands were shaking, I realised.
I took them away from the cup and laid them flat on the table to either side, pressing them down to keep them still.
Perhaps I was wrong to call in sick today, but I needed to come to terms with this. If they regained their skills as I lost them, then I couldn't practice anything. I needed to let the skills return on their own. Maybe it would make no difference, but until I knew more, I simply couldn't risk it.
Whatever the situation truly was, I had to return to school tomorrow.
With this decision made, the situation didn't seem so bad. My breathing seemed to come a little easier, and tomorrow didn't seem to be so daunting.
My breathing steadied, and I picked up my tea, watching the tremors spreading across the surface.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but my hands seemed to be a little steadier as well.
I felt like I was walking towards the hangman's noose.
I hadn't slept well and my thoughts were sluggish and clumsy, for all that my hands were jittering and my eyes skating across the halls, looking for someone I could remember drawing from.
I wanted this to be over and I didn't want to do this. Little flickers of hope that everything would be okay were swamped by the fear that nothing would be, all of it mixing in my stomach into a noxious cocktail of dread.
I'd never been pretty, and I hadn't managed to summon the courage to wear make-up to school in the single week I'd had the ability to do so, but now I knew I had to look almost unhealthy. Dad had been concerned this morning, checking several times to make sure I was ready to go to school and it had taken repeated assurances that I wouldn't collapse or throw up in class for him to stop.
Not that I blamed him.
My reflection had been pale to the point of looking bloodless, and the shadows under my eyes made me look like I hadn't slept in weeks. I hadn't bothered with my new ritual of applying make-up and washing it off before breakfast. The idea that not practising the stolen talents might help my victims recover faster, if they could recover at all, was a tenuous one, and in truth it was more a desire to avoid my own reflection, but either way I couldn't bring myself to try. The very idea felt like buying something with drug money, only worse.
Julia walked in front of me, sparing me a quick, dismissive glance, and I felt a flutter of panic.
Had I taken anything from her?
I didn't think so, but she hung around with Emma often enough that I might have. I knew I hadn't taken any languages or cooking ability from her, and as far as I was aware, Julia wasn't in my art class, so I couldn't have taken that ability from her. Had I drained her ability to apply make-up?
It was possible. Emma was certainly not the only person I had done that to, and anyone standing around her would have been available to drain when she left the room.
My gut clenched at the realisation that I couldn't even remember everyone I had targeted with my power.
Too late, I remembered to check to see if she was wearing make-up, and by the time I tried to catch a good look at her face she was walking in the other direction. I looked around for others, hoping to spot Cindy or Alice or even Emma. Somebody I knew I had taken from.
I hurried through to the intersection of two of the main corridors.
It was a spot that Emma and her friends liked to hang out at, some place where they could keep an eye on the comings and goings of other students. It was also a spot I frequently had to travel through, or one I had to go a considerable length out of my way to avoid, which may have been one reason why it was a favourite of hers to begin with.
My steps slowed as I approached and caught sight of the group of girls ahead. Part of it was the fear of what I was about to learn; seeing just how badly I had hurt people. Another part was just a fear of the group themselves, a gnawing apprehension that I couldn't shake off.
One of the girls on the far side of the group from me was the first to notice me. I could see the sudden change in focus, the way her head tilted to one side as she mentioned it to the others, and then, like a ripple spreading out the others around her looked over. They didn't move their heads much, just enough to catch a glimpse of me, but I could see the way the dynamic of the group subtly changed, and they knew I was aware that I had been spotted.
I hesitated for a second, stumbling slightly as I tried to keep walking while not wanting to get any closer. But no, I had to do this. I had to get this over with, one way or another.
Was it just my imagination, or did the whispers seem more focused today? Their eyes more accusing? I mentally shook myself. Several of them hadn't even bothered to look, and by the way Alice was irritably jabbing at her phone, she might not have even been aware of me at all.
Just paranoia, Taylor. You still need to do this.
There's a flash of red in the centre of the group, and before I can brace myself Emma comes into view, a frustrated scowl marring her otherwise attractive face. She looks at me, and though I can't hear the words she speaks to Madison, I can see by the curl of her lips that it's something nasty. This is normal, however, and I ignore it, instead focusing on the unusual thing in this situation.
Namely, Emma's make-up.
Instead of looking so natural that beyond the lipstick you can barely tell that she's wearing any, it seemed almost blotchy and was visibly uneven. The blush on her left cheek was more heavily applied than that on her right, and not quite matching it in position. The eye shadow didn't contrast the colour of her eyes so much as make them look heavy, as if Emma hadn't slept well in days.
I think that even the me from a few weeks ago would have noticed, when the only thing I knew about make-up was that other girls used it, and right now, with the stolen skills of a dozen different girls in my head?
It was almost painfully obvious.
I stopped, the shock at the normally flawless model's appearance doing what apprehension had failed to achieve. Emma sees me stop and her face twists in response, snapping something to Madison and walking off with her chin raised. The moment is ruined somewhat when she turns back and shoots me one last venomous look.
Did she know?
My heart is thundering almost painfully fast in my chest, and I think something is brushing against my jeans until I look down and see my hands shaking. Struggling to breathe, pulse pounding in my ears and the edges of the corridor fading away, I try not to collapse.
She knows.
She has to know, looking at me like that.
Then someone pushes me out the way as they go past, an irritated comment about blocking the corridor thrown over their shoulder, not even noticing when my feet tangle together and I hit the wall hard.
The burst of laughter from ahead lets my thoughts coalesce, as Emma's departing friends enjoy a brief bout of my humiliation.
The bell rang, and I jumped, clutching my bag and trying to slow my breathing. My knuckles were white around the bag straps, and I turned back the way I had come, ducking into the bathroom.
Splashing cold water on my face, I listened to the muffled footsteps of the student body fade away while I studied my reflection.
Did I look any paler than I had before?
I honestly didn't know, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to tell if I was. I had officially used my parahuman powers on students, children, and negatively affected their lives. Did that make me a villain?
I didn't know. I hadn't known that I was harming them, but I wasn't sure if that made a difference. I knew that if I used my powers on them again then I was definitely a villain. Running the tap, I splashed the water on my face several times, letting the shock of the cold water break me out of my thoughts and bring me back to the present. Whatever happened, I couldn't decide just yet.
It all depended on whether or not they recovered as my abilities faded. If they did, then that was a weight off my shoulders. If that was the case, then... honestly, I didn't know what I would do next. I would just have to wait and see.
If they didn't recover... if I had permanently stolen something from their lives that they might never get back... well, I would just have to wait and see in that case as well. If they could relearn what I had taken from them, then perhaps not everything was fucked.
And if they couldn't?
I shuddered, rubbing the cold water more thoroughly into my face.
I didn't even want to think about what I would do if that was the case.
Regardless, right now I had to get to class before anything else happened. Being late would only cause more problems. I nodded to myself, drying my face with a paper towel and giving my reflection a firm nod. Breathing deeply, I straightened up, pushed back my shoulders slightly and strode out the door. As long as I was still moving, then I was making progress.
I didn't quite believe that, but it helped me keep walking.
I struggled to focus throughout the class, barely managing to finish my work before the bell rang and I had to leave.
The next hour was even worse, with Madison and Julia both in my English class. It was hard to catch a glimpse of them, since they both sat on the opposite side of the classroom when they could, in the back row, the same as me.
Proximity.
I shuddered at the sensation of my power reaching out to them, feeling almost eager to reconnect with the girls, and my pen skittered across the page. I gripped the pen tighter, the tip juddering slightly and digging into the page in my efforts to keep it still, a jagged blue line dividing the words above it.
A quick glance over revealed nothing that I could detect. The two girls typically wore only light layers of cosmetics and my increased aptitude wasn't enough to tell if they had struggled or misapplied anything.
While saying something to Julia, Madison's eyes flickered in my direction and caught me looking.
Eye contact.
The connection grew, and I flinched away, quickly looking back down at my work. I heard Madison mutter something to Julia, and they both giggled, but I didn't hear what it was.
I didn't dare look at them after that, and after class was over I hurried out as fast as I could, though they didn't bother to follow me, and almost seemed to ignore me for the rest of the day.
With gym class kept inside, I resigned myself to another hour of being tripped and shoved every time the coach looked the other way, but surprisingly he decided on just a few games of badminton with small teams. I was still last to be picked each time, but I could deal with that.
I stumbled quite a lot and missed some easy shots, struggling to hold back my power as it instinctively reached out to everyone around me, feeling their coordination and practice as they outperformed me, a network of minor skills lighting up behind my eyes.
There were a few not so quiet comments about my performance, but those were easy to ignore. What was harder to ignore was how much brighter the skills of the people playing badminton were than I had expected.
Proximity.
Eye contact.
Conversation.
Physical contact.
All of these contributed to the connection between myself and the person I was drawing from, but none so much as the other person actively using the skill I was acquiring.
Now, however, I found something even stronger.
Competition.
Using those same skills I was drawing from lit up the connections between myself and the mental networks of the other students like a beacon, making it almost impossible to ignore. None of us were particularly skilled at badminton, or exceptional in any of the host of minor skills and talents that were used, but feeling that surge from competing against them and I knew that I would be able to drain any one of them dry in a couple of minutes at most. I could outstrip the entire class and leave both my own team and the one I was competing against completely incompetent in a quarter hour, if that.
The idea terrified me and excited me in equal measure.
"God damn it, Taylor," Jason swore, and I blinked, realising that I'd missed the shuttlecock as it flew right past me.
"Stop spacing out!"
"Sorry, sorry," I muttered, hurrying over to where it had landed, but all I was met with was a bunch of irritable grumbling and some dirty looks.
"She's probably high or something," Cindy sniffed, readjusting her grip on the racquet.
I sighed and tried to follow suit, forcing my awareness of my power to the back of my mind and attempting to block out the alluring mental web of talents that sprung up around me as the game resumed.
World Issues was first, with Mr Gladly. Predictably, he had no desire to be seen as the kind of teacher to give out homework or difficult assignments in the last class of the term, so instead he had us gather into groups and discuss the various topics we had covered over the last few months.
While the nearest students made a half-hearted attempt to regurgitate what they'd learned about CUI trade policies while pulling out their phones or discussing their plans for the holidays, I pulled out my notebooks and, admittedly, made a half-hearted attempt to look like I was reviewing previous notes while I sat and thought about what I was going to do.
Madison and Julia were sat on the other side of the class today and didn't bother me, so I was free to do something I'd spent the last couple of days worrying over, and use my power.
Carefully, hesitantly and almost expecting something to go wrong, I reached out to the other students.
The nexus came to light inside my mind, softly illuminated in a way I struggled to describe, even to myself, showing me the different skills that Greg had picked up throughout his life. The ones that I didn't know were in the forefront, mostly gaming skills, while writing and English were almost unnoticeable, despite being what he was currently engaged in.
It was interesting, watching someone use a skill that I had already mastered, even one as basic as writing in English. If I had to pick a word to convey my impression of his ability to write, or at least my power's interpretation of it, it would be 'translucent'.
I could see it, it was there, but unless I specifically looked for it, it just seemed to fade away, overshadowed by the much more vibrant talent pools to either side. Just behind it, if one skill could be considered 'behind' another, was a small amount of Spanish. I wasn't sure when Greg had learned Spanish, but it was faint, probably barely more than conversational, if that, if I had my guess right.
Nothing I hadn't already learned, stolen, from others.
Frowning, I switched to Sparky at a different table, and noticed much the same thing, only in his case the ability to play computer games was much lesser, and the ability to play drums was at the forefront. Beyond that, there weren't any other skills to attract my attention.
It wasn't that the ability to write or speak English didn't show up or register to my power, it just seemed so much duller or less interesting than the other stuff. I could only assume that it was because I already knew English myself.
Still, as interesting as that was, it wasn't what I was here for today.
Naoki and Chihiro sat together, phones out and tapping away. It wouldn't matter if they were texting or just playing games, they wouldn't get in trouble for it, especially not today.
Sending a thought in their direction got me an awareness of their capabilities, and switching between the two of them let me map out a few differences. Once again, Chihiro had a smaller pool of Japanese to draw from, but now I thought I knew the reasoning behind that. Having spent almost half a class slowly siphoning his Japanese away from him, Naoki simply had more ability left to him.
Ignoring the twisting in my stomach at the thought, I focused on how the talent pools felt in relation to one another. Naoki's seemed not just larger but also slightly more vibrant. With me spending less time drawing from him, I assumed that he still had a more 'unique' vocabulary, with a greater reservoir of words that I didn't know.
Were these pools of knowledge greater than they were when I drew from them last week?
As uncomfortable as it made me to realise it, I simply couldn't remember. I'd been too focused on Emma and worrying over whether or not she'd find out what I had done to remember the two boys I'd spent a bored class leeching from.
My mind made up, I settled back to wait, impatiently glaring up at the clock and its stubborn refusal to speed up.
By the time class ended I hadn't even bothered to write anything down, although I was hardly alone in that regard, and I didn't even pretend to pay attention to Mr Gladly's attempts to remind the class to study over the holidays.
Following Julia and Madison was not something I normally did, and despite myself I couldn't smother the flutter of anxiety that it lit inside me, but I needed to know.
When they got to Sophia, she sent a sneer my way but otherwise ignored me, and when Emma joined them a few moments later, a disdainful, almost angry look was all I got. No insults, no attempts to trip me or take my bag away. Just expressions that made it very clear how wanted my presence was.
But that was all I needed.
Emma's make-up seemed... better. It still wasn't up to her usual standards, not applied as evenly or symmetrically as usual, and her lipstick and eye shadow seemed fairly heavy, a bit too much for her skin tone, but I was reasonably certain that it was better than what she'd been wearing Tuesday morning.
Was it proof that my stolen talents returned to their owners?
No, but it was enough to settle my heart rate and almost led to me smiling in front of the other girls, which was never a good move.
Without bothering to come up with a good excuse or reason for an abrupt departure, I spent a couple of seconds looking at Emma, enough to get a feel for her skill at judging and applying cosmetics, then turned around and left.
I wanted to go to school, to find some way of proving to myself that I had been wrong about my power, but when the time came I just couldn't do it. I ended up just sitting at the kitchen table, unable even to eat breakfast and just clutching at the slowly cooling mug of tea in my hands as if it were somehow the key to finding my way out of this mess.
Occasionally, I took a sip.
I was perversely glad when Dad took one look at me and told me to stay at home. As much as I wanted this to be over, hating the inevitability of what I had to face, I was still dreading going back to Winslow.
My relief was short-lived, however.
The moment Dad left for work the silence in the house became almost oppressive. I started pacing back and forth, twisting my hands and looking for something, anything that might distract me.
I forced down a bowl of cereal, more for the need to occupy myself with something than out of any real hunger I might have, but once that was finished I still had nothing to do. Rifling through my schoolbag I found some homework that I had finished late Friday night and started to go over it.
I didn't think that I would change much, but right now it was something to focus on.
Something that wasn't an old man struggling to speak to his son.
I forced my thoughts away from the image, trying to fill my mind with trigonometry and algebra, and when that didn't work I turned to an English essay I had rushed through. I would take it slower and do it better today.
That thought then spiralled into another and another until I remembered that none of my stolen skills related to literature or essay writing.
It was okay.
This piece of homework was safe for me to redo.
The words swam in front of my eyes and every time I made myself focus on the questions being asked my mind twisted back on itself until everything I tried to write was somehow a crime against somebody else.
It's okay, I tried to tell myself, with little success. You only ever took minor skills from them. Stuff like knowing how to juggle, or sketch.
I took the ability to draw away from an artist.
I flinched at the thought, my pen skating across the page and leaving a messy blue streak across three lines.
I hissed in frustration as I looked at the mess. It meant I would have to redo the entire page.
She painted and used charcoal as well. Sketching was a small part of what she did as an artist. Really it was just the beginner stages that she had moved past.
The feeble excuse withered away even as I thought it.
I took fighting skills from a PRT agent. If he goes up against a villain and is killed, then it's on me.
My pen froze and I shuddered at the thought.
Surely they would send the heroes in against the villains. The PRT are just there as back up. Besides, they have their guns to use. They don't fight with their fists. And that trooper-
Jeremy, my treacherous thoughts stabbed at me.
-wouldn't fight alone. He would have a whole squad as back-up. And he knew loads of martial arts. I didn't take all of it.
The slew of panicked thoughts seemed even more hollow and desperate the longer I thought about them.
The cook who could no longer cook.
The artist who could no longer draw.
The trooper who could no longer fight.
Their faces swam in my mind and my pen creaked in my hand, knuckles white and bloodless around the handle.
It wasn't as bad as that.
I knew it wasn't as bad as that. I had taken bits of them, important bits, I wouldn't deny that, but I had never taken everything from them. I didn't think I had taken most of a given skill from a single person, with the sole exception of the PRT trooper, and in that case I knew for a fact that I hadn't taken most of what he had. I had simply been too busy trying to see what skills everybody else had on offer.
The lady I took Japanese from and the Korean father at the food stall were the only ones I had taken anything significant from, and even then I didn't think I had taken more than half of what they had.
At least, I hoped I hadn't.
Had I?
I turned and threw my pen at the wall, breath coming in short gasps.
I couldn't practice those languages any more. Doing so would just feel wrong, knowing that they were words stolen from someone else. I couldn't practice them, and they would fade away, like everything else I've taken from people, leaving me no better off than before and everyone else worse. They would fade away like they have never been stolen to begin with and everything would have been for nothing.
Crossing the room and stooping to pick up the pen, I paused.
The skills I stole faded away.
They weren't permanent. I knew they weren't permanent because I could feel them getting fainter, ever so slowly, hour by hour in the back of my mind. Just as I knew what skills other people had by reaching out to them, a part of me knew what I had myself.
And if the skills I took weren't permanent for myself, was the theft not permanent for others either? Was it possible that just as the skills left me, they returned to the people I had taken them from?
Inches from the pen, my hand trembled slightly.
Blinking, I collected the pen and returned to the table, carefully laying it down and sitting, my homework disregarded.
I didn't know.
I drummed my fingers on the page in front of me and thought about the people I had reached out to and how I had felt their skills diminishing. Could I also feel their skills returning?
I didn't know.
I hurried to the kitchen, putting the kettle on the boil and rifling through the cupboards for some teabags, my fingers still shaking. I slowly poured the boiling water, trying to force my hands to be steady, and carefully took the cup of black tea back to the table, finding some small measure of comfort in the old ritual.
Sitting down, I leaned over the cup and inhaled, taking a long, deep breath of aromatic steam and holding it for a few seconds, feeling it tickle the back of my throat before I slowly released it.
It hadn't been an issue recently, given how much I was draining from people, but it had bothered me at first that anything I copied (or thought I was copying) faded away after a few days. After the initial elation of having powers, I had been disappointed at how minor they turned out to be. Just knowing what somebody else could do wasn't the kind of ability that would ever have people look up or admire me.
But then I saw how Emma could twist people around her words, convince them to leave a topic alone or focus on something she wanted, and I wished that I could do that as well. Feeling that connection flowing into me had been a revelation, and when what Emma was doing started to make more sense to me, becoming less some unknown social art and more just a matter of presentation, I realised that I could do this stuff as well.
Not very well, and not very easily, but better than I could before.
Of course, actually finding someone prepared to speak to me hadn't been very easy, and the other girls had pounced the moment they saw me trying. The next time Mr Gladly set us a group project, however, keeping the other members of the group on track and working seemed a lot easier than the last time.
As the days went by, I drew on other things, such as calligraphy once I had seen another student practicing their curving, looping script. Watching my own hand-writing change over the course of several sentences had been remarkable, and I couldn't help but giggle to myself, which resulting in me being told off by the teacher and several rounds of stage whispers about how I must be high in class.
Then these gifts started to fade, another disappointment of my powers.
Still, it helped me deal with school when things seemed to be getting too bad. When they verbally harassed me, I just got that much better at dealing with words. When they targeted me too much in Phys Ed I just got better at dodging thrown objects or suspicious fouls. It wasn't much, but the ability to learn how to deal with anything bothering me, as it bothered me? That was very welcome indeed. If that was all my power was, then I could accept that happily.
I took another deep breath, and raised the cup to my lips.
The gifts and knowledge I took from others faded. But when it left me, where did it go to? Did it just vanish, leaving both of us bereft? That would be too cruel, and I didn't think I could bear that. But since it left me, there was a chance, and a good one in my mind, that it returned to the other person. That all I needed to do was wait and everything would be back to normal, with nobody the worse off.
Maybe it wasn't stealing at all, just borrowing.
If that was true, then I hadn't ruined anybody after all; I had just... temporarily inconvenienced them.
All was not lost.
The situation was salvageable.
I breathed in again and took another sip of tea, feeling my heartbeat calm as I lowered the cup to the table.
The surface of the drink was rippling, like a puddle in rain.
My hands were shaking, I realised.
I took them away from the cup and laid them flat on the table to either side, pressing them down to keep them still.
Perhaps I was wrong to call in sick today, but I needed to come to terms with this. If they regained their skills as I lost them, then I couldn't practice anything. I needed to let the skills return on their own. Maybe it would make no difference, but until I knew more, I simply couldn't risk it.
Whatever the situation truly was, I had to return to school tomorrow.
With this decision made, the situation didn't seem so bad. My breathing seemed to come a little easier, and tomorrow didn't seem to be so daunting.
My breathing steadied, and I picked up my tea, watching the tremors spreading across the surface.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but my hands seemed to be a little steadier as well.
..........
I felt like I was walking towards the hangman's noose.
I hadn't slept well and my thoughts were sluggish and clumsy, for all that my hands were jittering and my eyes skating across the halls, looking for someone I could remember drawing from.
I wanted this to be over and I didn't want to do this. Little flickers of hope that everything would be okay were swamped by the fear that nothing would be, all of it mixing in my stomach into a noxious cocktail of dread.
I'd never been pretty, and I hadn't managed to summon the courage to wear make-up to school in the single week I'd had the ability to do so, but now I knew I had to look almost unhealthy. Dad had been concerned this morning, checking several times to make sure I was ready to go to school and it had taken repeated assurances that I wouldn't collapse or throw up in class for him to stop.
Not that I blamed him.
My reflection had been pale to the point of looking bloodless, and the shadows under my eyes made me look like I hadn't slept in weeks. I hadn't bothered with my new ritual of applying make-up and washing it off before breakfast. The idea that not practising the stolen talents might help my victims recover faster, if they could recover at all, was a tenuous one, and in truth it was more a desire to avoid my own reflection, but either way I couldn't bring myself to try. The very idea felt like buying something with drug money, only worse.
Julia walked in front of me, sparing me a quick, dismissive glance, and I felt a flutter of panic.
Had I taken anything from her?
I didn't think so, but she hung around with Emma often enough that I might have. I knew I hadn't taken any languages or cooking ability from her, and as far as I was aware, Julia wasn't in my art class, so I couldn't have taken that ability from her. Had I drained her ability to apply make-up?
It was possible. Emma was certainly not the only person I had done that to, and anyone standing around her would have been available to drain when she left the room.
My gut clenched at the realisation that I couldn't even remember everyone I had targeted with my power.
Too late, I remembered to check to see if she was wearing make-up, and by the time I tried to catch a good look at her face she was walking in the other direction. I looked around for others, hoping to spot Cindy or Alice or even Emma. Somebody I knew I had taken from.
I hurried through to the intersection of two of the main corridors.
It was a spot that Emma and her friends liked to hang out at, some place where they could keep an eye on the comings and goings of other students. It was also a spot I frequently had to travel through, or one I had to go a considerable length out of my way to avoid, which may have been one reason why it was a favourite of hers to begin with.
My steps slowed as I approached and caught sight of the group of girls ahead. Part of it was the fear of what I was about to learn; seeing just how badly I had hurt people. Another part was just a fear of the group themselves, a gnawing apprehension that I couldn't shake off.
One of the girls on the far side of the group from me was the first to notice me. I could see the sudden change in focus, the way her head tilted to one side as she mentioned it to the others, and then, like a ripple spreading out the others around her looked over. They didn't move their heads much, just enough to catch a glimpse of me, but I could see the way the dynamic of the group subtly changed, and they knew I was aware that I had been spotted.
I hesitated for a second, stumbling slightly as I tried to keep walking while not wanting to get any closer. But no, I had to do this. I had to get this over with, one way or another.
Was it just my imagination, or did the whispers seem more focused today? Their eyes more accusing? I mentally shook myself. Several of them hadn't even bothered to look, and by the way Alice was irritably jabbing at her phone, she might not have even been aware of me at all.
Just paranoia, Taylor. You still need to do this.
There's a flash of red in the centre of the group, and before I can brace myself Emma comes into view, a frustrated scowl marring her otherwise attractive face. She looks at me, and though I can't hear the words she speaks to Madison, I can see by the curl of her lips that it's something nasty. This is normal, however, and I ignore it, instead focusing on the unusual thing in this situation.
Namely, Emma's make-up.
Instead of looking so natural that beyond the lipstick you can barely tell that she's wearing any, it seemed almost blotchy and was visibly uneven. The blush on her left cheek was more heavily applied than that on her right, and not quite matching it in position. The eye shadow didn't contrast the colour of her eyes so much as make them look heavy, as if Emma hadn't slept well in days.
I think that even the me from a few weeks ago would have noticed, when the only thing I knew about make-up was that other girls used it, and right now, with the stolen skills of a dozen different girls in my head?
It was almost painfully obvious.
I stopped, the shock at the normally flawless model's appearance doing what apprehension had failed to achieve. Emma sees me stop and her face twists in response, snapping something to Madison and walking off with her chin raised. The moment is ruined somewhat when she turns back and shoots me one last venomous look.
Did she know?
My heart is thundering almost painfully fast in my chest, and I think something is brushing against my jeans until I look down and see my hands shaking. Struggling to breathe, pulse pounding in my ears and the edges of the corridor fading away, I try not to collapse.
She knows.
She has to know, looking at me like that.
Then someone pushes me out the way as they go past, an irritated comment about blocking the corridor thrown over their shoulder, not even noticing when my feet tangle together and I hit the wall hard.
The burst of laughter from ahead lets my thoughts coalesce, as Emma's departing friends enjoy a brief bout of my humiliation.
The bell rang, and I jumped, clutching my bag and trying to slow my breathing. My knuckles were white around the bag straps, and I turned back the way I had come, ducking into the bathroom.
Splashing cold water on my face, I listened to the muffled footsteps of the student body fade away while I studied my reflection.
Did I look any paler than I had before?
I honestly didn't know, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to tell if I was. I had officially used my parahuman powers on students, children, and negatively affected their lives. Did that make me a villain?
I didn't know. I hadn't known that I was harming them, but I wasn't sure if that made a difference. I knew that if I used my powers on them again then I was definitely a villain. Running the tap, I splashed the water on my face several times, letting the shock of the cold water break me out of my thoughts and bring me back to the present. Whatever happened, I couldn't decide just yet.
It all depended on whether or not they recovered as my abilities faded. If they did, then that was a weight off my shoulders. If that was the case, then... honestly, I didn't know what I would do next. I would just have to wait and see.
If they didn't recover... if I had permanently stolen something from their lives that they might never get back... well, I would just have to wait and see in that case as well. If they could relearn what I had taken from them, then perhaps not everything was fucked.
And if they couldn't?
I shuddered, rubbing the cold water more thoroughly into my face.
I didn't even want to think about what I would do if that was the case.
Regardless, right now I had to get to class before anything else happened. Being late would only cause more problems. I nodded to myself, drying my face with a paper towel and giving my reflection a firm nod. Breathing deeply, I straightened up, pushed back my shoulders slightly and strode out the door. As long as I was still moving, then I was making progress.
I didn't quite believe that, but it helped me keep walking.
..........
Mercifully, computer science class was first, and it provided a welcome reprieve from the rest of the student body. Mrs Knott frowned a bit at my tardiness, but she was aware that I had been officially 'sick' the day before, and one look at my pallor was enough for her to quieten down and simply wave me to my seat.
I struggled to focus throughout the class, barely managing to finish my work before the bell rang and I had to leave.
The next hour was even worse, with Madison and Julia both in my English class. It was hard to catch a glimpse of them, since they both sat on the opposite side of the classroom when they could, in the back row, the same as me.
Proximity.
I shuddered at the sensation of my power reaching out to them, feeling almost eager to reconnect with the girls, and my pen skittered across the page. I gripped the pen tighter, the tip juddering slightly and digging into the page in my efforts to keep it still, a jagged blue line dividing the words above it.
A quick glance over revealed nothing that I could detect. The two girls typically wore only light layers of cosmetics and my increased aptitude wasn't enough to tell if they had struggled or misapplied anything.
While saying something to Julia, Madison's eyes flickered in my direction and caught me looking.
Eye contact.
The connection grew, and I flinched away, quickly looking back down at my work. I heard Madison mutter something to Julia, and they both giggled, but I didn't hear what it was.
I didn't dare look at them after that, and after class was over I hurried out as fast as I could, though they didn't bother to follow me, and almost seemed to ignore me for the rest of the day.
..........
Wednesday was cold and miserable, with a biting wind that drove the sleet in between any gap in my old waterproof, the rain hissing and seething along the rooftops and choking the gutters with detritus.
With gym class kept inside, I resigned myself to another hour of being tripped and shoved every time the coach looked the other way, but surprisingly he decided on just a few games of badminton with small teams. I was still last to be picked each time, but I could deal with that.
I stumbled quite a lot and missed some easy shots, struggling to hold back my power as it instinctively reached out to everyone around me, feeling their coordination and practice as they outperformed me, a network of minor skills lighting up behind my eyes.
There were a few not so quiet comments about my performance, but those were easy to ignore. What was harder to ignore was how much brighter the skills of the people playing badminton were than I had expected.
Proximity.
Eye contact.
Conversation.
Physical contact.
All of these contributed to the connection between myself and the person I was drawing from, but none so much as the other person actively using the skill I was acquiring.
Now, however, I found something even stronger.
Competition.
Using those same skills I was drawing from lit up the connections between myself and the mental networks of the other students like a beacon, making it almost impossible to ignore. None of us were particularly skilled at badminton, or exceptional in any of the host of minor skills and talents that were used, but feeling that surge from competing against them and I knew that I would be able to drain any one of them dry in a couple of minutes at most. I could outstrip the entire class and leave both my own team and the one I was competing against completely incompetent in a quarter hour, if that.
The idea terrified me and excited me in equal measure.
"God damn it, Taylor," Jason swore, and I blinked, realising that I'd missed the shuttlecock as it flew right past me.
"Stop spacing out!"
"Sorry, sorry," I muttered, hurrying over to where it had landed, but all I was met with was a bunch of irritable grumbling and some dirty looks.
"She's probably high or something," Cindy sniffed, readjusting her grip on the racquet.
I sighed and tried to follow suit, forcing my awareness of my power to the back of my mind and attempting to block out the alluring mental web of talents that sprung up around me as the game resumed.
..........
Thursday was cold, but fortunately dry, and beyond a few lingering puddles there was no risk of getting splashed by 'accident' before I made it to class.
World Issues was first, with Mr Gladly. Predictably, he had no desire to be seen as the kind of teacher to give out homework or difficult assignments in the last class of the term, so instead he had us gather into groups and discuss the various topics we had covered over the last few months.
While the nearest students made a half-hearted attempt to regurgitate what they'd learned about CUI trade policies while pulling out their phones or discussing their plans for the holidays, I pulled out my notebooks and, admittedly, made a half-hearted attempt to look like I was reviewing previous notes while I sat and thought about what I was going to do.
Madison and Julia were sat on the other side of the class today and didn't bother me, so I was free to do something I'd spent the last couple of days worrying over, and use my power.
Carefully, hesitantly and almost expecting something to go wrong, I reached out to the other students.
The nexus came to light inside my mind, softly illuminated in a way I struggled to describe, even to myself, showing me the different skills that Greg had picked up throughout his life. The ones that I didn't know were in the forefront, mostly gaming skills, while writing and English were almost unnoticeable, despite being what he was currently engaged in.
It was interesting, watching someone use a skill that I had already mastered, even one as basic as writing in English. If I had to pick a word to convey my impression of his ability to write, or at least my power's interpretation of it, it would be 'translucent'.
I could see it, it was there, but unless I specifically looked for it, it just seemed to fade away, overshadowed by the much more vibrant talent pools to either side. Just behind it, if one skill could be considered 'behind' another, was a small amount of Spanish. I wasn't sure when Greg had learned Spanish, but it was faint, probably barely more than conversational, if that, if I had my guess right.
Nothing I hadn't already learned, stolen, from others.
Frowning, I switched to Sparky at a different table, and noticed much the same thing, only in his case the ability to play computer games was much lesser, and the ability to play drums was at the forefront. Beyond that, there weren't any other skills to attract my attention.
It wasn't that the ability to write or speak English didn't show up or register to my power, it just seemed so much duller or less interesting than the other stuff. I could only assume that it was because I already knew English myself.
Still, as interesting as that was, it wasn't what I was here for today.
Naoki and Chihiro sat together, phones out and tapping away. It wouldn't matter if they were texting or just playing games, they wouldn't get in trouble for it, especially not today.
Sending a thought in their direction got me an awareness of their capabilities, and switching between the two of them let me map out a few differences. Once again, Chihiro had a smaller pool of Japanese to draw from, but now I thought I knew the reasoning behind that. Having spent almost half a class slowly siphoning his Japanese away from him, Naoki simply had more ability left to him.
Ignoring the twisting in my stomach at the thought, I focused on how the talent pools felt in relation to one another. Naoki's seemed not just larger but also slightly more vibrant. With me spending less time drawing from him, I assumed that he still had a more 'unique' vocabulary, with a greater reservoir of words that I didn't know.
Were these pools of knowledge greater than they were when I drew from them last week?
As uncomfortable as it made me to realise it, I simply couldn't remember. I'd been too focused on Emma and worrying over whether or not she'd find out what I had done to remember the two boys I'd spent a bored class leeching from.
My mind made up, I settled back to wait, impatiently glaring up at the clock and its stubborn refusal to speed up.
By the time class ended I hadn't even bothered to write anything down, although I was hardly alone in that regard, and I didn't even pretend to pay attention to Mr Gladly's attempts to remind the class to study over the holidays.
Following Julia and Madison was not something I normally did, and despite myself I couldn't smother the flutter of anxiety that it lit inside me, but I needed to know.
When they got to Sophia, she sent a sneer my way but otherwise ignored me, and when Emma joined them a few moments later, a disdainful, almost angry look was all I got. No insults, no attempts to trip me or take my bag away. Just expressions that made it very clear how wanted my presence was.
But that was all I needed.
Emma's make-up seemed... better. It still wasn't up to her usual standards, not applied as evenly or symmetrically as usual, and her lipstick and eye shadow seemed fairly heavy, a bit too much for her skin tone, but I was reasonably certain that it was better than what she'd been wearing Tuesday morning.
Was it proof that my stolen talents returned to their owners?
No, but it was enough to settle my heart rate and almost led to me smiling in front of the other girls, which was never a good move.
Without bothering to come up with a good excuse or reason for an abrupt departure, I spent a couple of seconds looking at Emma, enough to get a feel for her skill at judging and applying cosmetics, then turned around and left.
Highly skilled:
- Japanese
- Korean
- Spanish
- Self-defence
- Cosmetics
- Juggling
- Socialising and public speaking
- Art and sketching
- Cooking
- Driving
- Statistics
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Pridakarbiter
Unseelie
- Location
- Arctis Tor
I thought Victor kept some of what he copied permanently ? Or is Taylor's version slightly different?
- Location
- New Zealand
The more Taylor takes from someone, the higher proportion she keeps permanently and the longer it takes for the non-permanent part to fade away, and for the victim to regenerate the skills taken from them. Taylor's skills fading and her victim's skills returning are actually independent of each other, but Taylor hasn't figured out all the nuances and nitty gritty details of her power yet.
- Location
- Around
So more or less the general consensus for how canon Victor works. If she doesn't practice it she loses at least some of it . Also good to see this back, week of revivals I swear.
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- Location
- New Zealand
The comments about this being the week of revivals from several other people is what got me to finish off the last thousand words today.
I'm trying to keep it as accurate to canon Victor's power as possible, taking some creative liberties where we don't have clear WoG on how things work, such as the ability to sense what skills someone has.
I summed it up earlier with this post.
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Wow. Taylor can't see that there are some people she could use her power on that have less consequences than others? If she went to the Protectorate I'm sure they'd be happy to point her to a few targets.
Anyone with hard-earned skills, like say a PRT trooper in a permanent vegetative state or a high end mafia book-keeper making a deal in exchange for a lighter sentence. A pilot no longer physically able to fly. A surgeon with any kind of debilitating illness not willing to let that training and practice go to waste.
Though I wouldn't expect them to suggest it to a minor, someone due to be executed.
Imagine Taylor becoming known as a repository of the knowledge earned by the best in the world; she could allow them to pass that knowledge on even after they're gone.
But no, to be Taylor is to suffer.
She needs to talk to someone, as she is right now she can't be objective about her power. She could go to the Protectorate but probably not. I'd suggest Uber but that would be a hard meeting to set up. She's probably a prime target for Tattletale; anyone that can make a logical argument to prove to Taylor that she isn't a thieving monster would earn themselves a lot of gratitude.
Or just a speculative thread on PHO might be enough to get her to look at people stuck in diminished states that will never get better; but in her mental state I'm not sure she could even make that moral argument.
Anyone with hard-earned skills, like say a PRT trooper in a permanent vegetative state or a high end mafia book-keeper making a deal in exchange for a lighter sentence. A pilot no longer physically able to fly. A surgeon with any kind of debilitating illness not willing to let that training and practice go to waste.
Though I wouldn't expect them to suggest it to a minor, someone due to be executed.
Imagine Taylor becoming known as a repository of the knowledge earned by the best in the world; she could allow them to pass that knowledge on even after they're gone.
But no, to be Taylor is to suffer.
She needs to talk to someone, as she is right now she can't be objective about her power. She could go to the Protectorate but probably not. I'd suggest Uber but that would be a hard meeting to set up. She's probably a prime target for Tattletale; anyone that can make a logical argument to prove to Taylor that she isn't a thieving monster would earn themselves a lot of gratitude.
Or just a speculative thread on PHO might be enough to get her to look at people stuck in diminished states that will never get better; but in her mental state I'm not sure she could even make that moral argument.
- Location
- USA
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Interesting. I hope that we don't get to much more of Taylor wallowing in self-hatred as while perfectly fine here too much I think will spoil the story.
Anyway good chapter look forward to seeing Taylor take a proactive roll.
Anyway good chapter look forward to seeing Taylor take a proactive roll.