[ ] Picking up the Pieces, Part 3 – So that was a thing. Unfortunately for you and them both, dealing with angry and upset space wizards is way outside your areas of expertise. You need to talk about this with someone, but whom? And how are you going to prove that you aren't crazy?
-[ ] Talk to Dragon about the EEG results
--[ ] Spell calculations, Device production
-[ ] Power up the radio with Dragon
--[ ] Endbringers in general, the Simurgh in particular, and TSAB assistance
Emigration 4.17
Friday, April 8
You click on the link in the email you received yesterday and are unsurprised to find yourself once again on the video chat Dragon used to talk with you last time. Also like last time, Perfect Storm modifies your laptop's video feed so it displays Calamity Witch rather than you when the world-famous Tinker logs on. "Do you just keep windows open until people reply?" you can't help but ask. You got the private message yesterday afternoon, but between making dinner alongside Dad and putting the finishing touches on the artsy-craftsy History project you maybe possibly forgot about until the last minute, you didn't even know she had sent you anything until you logged onto your account half an hour ago. And yet, even after that delay, she still answers in just a couple of seconds? Something's a little fishy about this.
Oh. Or maybe she's like Miss Militia and doesn't sleep. Agoraphobia and insomnia? No wonder she gets so much Tinkering done. She'd probably die of boredom if she didn't have something to do.
The avatar bobs gently; maybe a shrug? "You'd be surprised how many windows I keep open at any one time. There's a lot I have to keep track of, and automation only goes so far. That isn't what I wanted to talk to you about, though."
You grin, feeling only a little superior. "The EEG says I don't have any powers, doesn't it?"
"More like it's indeterminate. There is something strange going on in your brain when you use magic, but the source could not be localized."
"And by can't be localized, you mean it isn't coming from that thing in the front of my brain where the Corona or whatever used to be, right?" She doesn't answer immediately, which makes your smile widen a little more. "Right?"
"…That is one way to interpret it."
You laugh lightly. Parahuman powers? Nope! You are a mage. This would have all gone so much faster if Dragon had just believed you, but you'll cut her some slack. You had trouble believing in magic until you created Samantha, and you were the one doing it. Besides, there's no reason to rub her nose in her misjudgment. That's the kind of thing Emma would do. Instead you simply ask, "Now that that's all been straightened out, have you taken a look at the books Perfect Storm sent you? I couldn't make heads or tails out of the blueprints, but I'm not a Tinker or an engineer—"
«Device Meister, Mistress.»
"—so I wouldn't know what I'm looking at anyway," you finish, ignoring Perfect Storm's 'helpful' correction.
"That makes two of us."
What?
"I flipped through the designs in those books, but they make no sense. Analyzing the blueprints, the materials used have the wrong resistances for electricity to flow down them, and several areas don't have any kind of circuitry whatsoever. Whatever powers your device, it isn't electricity. Not to mention, the blueprints has different pieces stacked on top of and even inside other ones, which just isn't possible. Not unless even the simplest 'magical' designs rely on dimensional folding or something along those lines, anyway," she reluctantly amends.
Dimensional folding. Thinking back to how Perfect Storm shifted when you first met, you nod. You could see that being the case.
"Nor is it only the physical designs that don't work," Dragon continues. "I thought I could get some hints about the engineering from looking at the code, but that was even less helpful. I'm highly tempted to dismiss this as an elaborate prank, but thinking back to our other talks, you sounded too eager and honest for that to be the case. You believe what you're saying is true, for whatever that's worth."
"I know what I'm saying is true," you tell her in a stern voice. She thinks this is a prank? Seriously? "The code makes perfect sense. I've definitely seen it enough. If it didn't work, I'd know it."
"There is no sense to be had in it. There is no internal consistency at all. How to explain this?" mutters the Tinker to herself. "You know about number bases, right? Decimals like everyone uses in day-to-day life is base 10, binary is base 2, that sort of thing?" You nod. "Mathematics can be done without issue no matter the bases involved. The problem is that it has to be consistent, and this isn't. In your 'spells', different variables will be entered into the same function, but running through the calculations based on the final answers in the books, the only way the answers make sense is if, depending on the variable in question, the function uses different bases depending on the variable that was entered. Ten is the predominant, but not by much. Base 7 and 12 are also very common, followed by a substantial bit of base 17. To make matters more complicated, even if two variables correspond to the same function and use the same base, that function will then call up completely different subroutines. I can't find any sign for when one set of subroutines is supposed to be used instead of another, and there are no redundancy loops or error checks that I would expect should it be a matter of trial and error. These codes should all collapse into error messages before they do anything."
"I don't know what to tell you. My spells make sense to me. If there's something funky going on with the math, it isn't bad enough that I've noticed it. As for the whole subroutine thing, maybe it just needs an AI to figure out what needs to be turned on when, but I don't think that's it, either." You shrug. "Storm's told me before that I can learn to cast any of my spells without its help. That doesn't sound like it's essential, just very very helpful."
Dragon shakes her head. "Regardless, this doesn't prove your claims. I'm willing to accept for now that you aren't a parahuman," she explains to your expression of shock, "but the only alternative you've presented so far is that you learned magic from aliens. You'll have to excuse me if I first look at all the possibilities before I accept something that unbelievable. It's nothing personal, just that what you're trying to convince me of is beyond outlandish and well into impossible. For it to stand up on its own merits, every other plausible and even implausible explanation must first be ruled out."
You glare at her, your initial surprise becoming overwhelmed by your anger and frustration. When you first talked to Dragon, you revealed the whole truth both because it was the right thing to do and because she, being a world-famous hero and Tinker, likely deserved to know about alien technology if anyone did. You went through the MRI and the EEG and the fight that nearly got Vista killed so you could prove to her that you were telling the truth and weren't crazy or messing with her. And this is the thanks you get? That's a good reason to let her stay in the dark and be surprised if and when space wizards show up on Earth Bet—
Oh. Ohhh. Now that's just mean, but it's so deserved.
"What more proof would you want before you accept that everything I'm telling you is real?" you ask, carefully hiding your expectant smirk.
"What more proof do I need before I believe in magical aliens? Where do I begin? The bare basics would—"
"Would talking to them work?"
"…Um." Dragon blinks bewildered at you. "What?"
"You remember that video I sent you where I swam down to the crashed ship and salvaged something from it before it all sank? Originally, I thought what I found was part of the computer. That's what I went down looking for, you see," you explain, "something that would reveal exactly what Perfect Storm is and where it comes from. It doesn't remember a lot from before it crashed here. Anyway, when I powered up what I thought was a computer, it turned out it was actually the ship's radio."
"You claim to have a radio from a UFO," Dragon repeats slowly, "and that you managed to talk to the same aliens whose technology you claim to use. And you want to, what, put me on the line with them?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"I'm starting to think you either really did do all this or are completely delusional. I don't know which would be worse."
You shrug. You aren't entirely sure what she's worried about, but maybe that's because you've spent the last couple of months with Perfect Storm whereas she hasn't. Either way, a problem for another day. "Well? Do you want to talk to them or not?"
Dragon visibly hesitates, but finally her curiosity wins out. "Okay. If you're this eager to show me, I'll see it."
«Negative.»
"Huh? Negative what?" you ask your Device.
«Mistress suffered moderate to severe Core strain following last communication attempt. Commands to power radio will be overridden.»
Dragon turns to stare at Perfect Storm in interest, and you give her a sheepish smile. "Give us just a minute, please?" You don't wait for her to respond before hitting the mute button. "Storm, this is serious. If we want Dragon's help figuring out how to power the radio long-term or finding the rest of the ship or anything, really, we need her to believe us. You heard her. She isn't going to accept what we're telling her unless she talks to them herself."
«Irrelevant. Mistress's Linker Core will be damaged following such strain.»
You stop and think for a second. Your Intelligent Device is doing its best to protect you. You appreciate that, you really do, but right now, that's more than a little inconvenient. Perhaps it gives you a different angle of attack, though. "What about the Endbringers? They're a danger to me, and if the TSAB or whatever has weapons that can kill them? That will keep me safer than me being here by myself."
«Damage to Mistress's Linker Core will eliminate ability to protect self from all enemies.»
"You aren't making this easy, are you?" you mutter. "Okay. A question. Which is it straining my Core: just turning the thing on, or keeping it running?"
«Continued use.»
Ha! Good. This you can work with. "So I can run it for a little while without it causing damage, right?" Perfect Storm reluctantly dings. "How long? If we turned the radio on, how long would I have before my Core starts getting strained again?"
The Device is silent for a long moment. «Thirty seconds.»
"See, that's not too—" Perfect Storm's words catch up to you, and you blink. "Say what again? Thirty seconds? That's it?"
«Mistress's Linker Core still has not fully recovered from prior communication. Healing sufficient for routine spellcasting was achieved quickly, but Linker Core still possesses lingering damage. Thirty seconds maximum empowerment.»
Well, that's less helpful than you expected. You can tell Perfect Storm won't budge on this, though. Clicking the microphone button again, you give Dragon a weak smile. "I talked to Storm, and it's willing to help power the radio again. The only problem is that my magic took a big hit last time, so we'll only get thirty seconds before Storm shuts it off."
"That's not a lot of time."
"Tell me about it," you mutter. "But I can't power the radio without its help, so if thirty seconds is all we get, that's what we'll have to work with. Even getting that much was a hassle. Is there anything specific you want to talk about?"
"We hardly have long enough to talk about anything," she points out. "But if there's anything critical we need to know about…. You said it's because of their technology that you and your partner are immune to the Simurgh, correct?" You nod. "Then that's what we need to discuss. What is it about their technology that protects you? The Simurgh is in some ways the most dangerous of the Endbringers. The others we can drive off and the threat is over, but the Simurgh's plots take months or even years to come to fruition. If we could limit the damage she can do over the long-term, she becomes less of a threat. We might even be able to stop quarantining whole cities."
You wince. That'll be hard. It's definitely important, but you just don't know if you'll have the time to get the explanation out, let alone get a good answer. Perfect Storm sent the PRT a long explanation about how telepathy works, but presumably Dragon has had as much luck getting that to work as she's had with magic, which is not a good omen for this conversation.
Walking off-screen to your closet, you lug the radio tube out and prop it against your desk chair. "Storm, ready with the translation program? Dragon, get ready to ask your question." You pick your Device up and hold it in your palm over the radio. "Turn it on."
Just like before, dark triangles and wires pop out of nowhere and tap into pieces of the radio. The holographic screens appear afterwards. A quick check to make sure Perfect Storm is showing them to Dragon, and you give her a nod. "This is Taylor, from Earth Bet. Is anyone there?"
"TSAB Enforcer Command, Lieutenant Azera speaking. Where did you say you're from again?"
Great, somebody who doesn't know what's going on. That's just what you need right now. "Earth Bet. I'm the only mage on my world. I talked to this Tiburon guy a few weeks ago. I'm kind of in a time crunch here, but we need to know how magic blocks out telepathy."
You're worried Azera is going to ask some stupid questions and waste more of your limited time, but she seems to roll with the punches. "What kind of telepathy do you mean? Forcible interrogations, hallucinations, inviolable directives?"
"Maybe the last one." Is the Simurgh's Scream a directive? It certainly makes people act in a way totally opposite to how they normally world, so you guess? "There's a monster on our world who drives whole cities insane whenever she attacks, and I'm one of the only people who can resist her. We think it's because of the Device I picked up, but we don't know for sure, and I don't know how to build them or how they work. I have one of our best engineers on the—"
The screens flicker mid-sentence and die. Staring at Perfect Storm, you bite out, "That was not thirty seconds."
«It was, Mistress. Agreement was for thirty seconds. Linker Core monitored during event. Cumulative damage noted. Too dangerous to attempt communication again without stronger power source. Refuse to comply with instructions to do so.»
You turn to look at Dragon. "Sorry. I knew thirty seconds wasn't a lot, but I thought you would at least get a chance to ask somebody who knows about telepathy and everything a question."
"It's fine. I didn't expect much with that little time to work," she admits. "What I find more interesting is how you talked to them. They don't know who you are, do they?"
"Not really. I only had a couple of minutes to talk to them last time, and it wasn't until the end of the conversation that they realized I'm the only mage here. I never seem to get a chance to tell them anything of importance," you add with a significant look at your Device.
Perfect Storm glints back unashamedly.
"You've certainly given me a great deal to think about," says Dragon with a sigh. "And everything was calming down, too. I knew the other shoe was going to drop eventually. I just didn't think it would be something like this."
"Sorry?"
She waves your tentative apology off. "Nothing we can do about it now. Even if your Storm decides to let you power the radio again, please don't. Aliens with magic." She shakes her head. "Assuming somebody isn't playing a joke on you and you aren't playing one on me, this is the kind of situation that needs to be handled delicately. I don't know who needs to know about this and how to make them believe it when I'm not sure I do, but this is bigger than just the two of us. Please, just hold off on talking to them until we have some idea of what we're going to do."
Her side of the video abruptly cuts off, and you watch the screen for a few seconds before deciding she hung up rather than that there's any technical difficulties. Hanging Perfect Storm around you neck again, you grab the radio to manhandle it back into your closet.
Somehow, you don't think this is much of a shoe, and that worries you.
I wonder what Saint's making of all this.
+1 to Spatial Translocation (1/2 Adept).
Only a few people remembered that Perfect Storm said no to you powering up the radio again. I thought about having it stick to its guns, but since you were all so eager to have Dragon talk to the TSAB, you got one exception. The radio is now firmly off unless you hook a bigger mana source to it than somebody's Linker Core. And yes, I actually did time myself reading the dialogue so I wouldn't shortchange you on your thirty seconds.
No vote for this chapter because this right here is the end of the arc! 4.x next, then the after-action report, and then Arc 5 begins. Fair warning, there might be a couple of weeks delay between Arcs 5 and 6 since I haven't planned that far in advance. I meant to, but I keep getting sidetracked. That's an issue for the future, though, and will likely depend on just what kind of a mess you make of Arc 5.
