A Worm AU where the Entities do things a little differently and Taylor's got an uncle that results in a different power set for her trigger event.
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Introduction
All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.
Before you get too far, I would like to provide some warnings:
- This story is not conflict-driven. If you expect your Worm to be conflict-driven, stay away.
- This story can very likely be described as "slice of life". If you don't like that, you may wish to leave.
- This story has been compared favorably and unfavorably to Taylor Varga. I used to say that if you don't like Taylor Varga you will probably not like this story either, but I'm told that's not true.
- I have previously self-labeled myself as (Crappy Author) in the Taylor Varga discord. Others disagree with me. My day job involves managing servers and programming, not writing text. Consider yourself warned.
- I have labeled myself as (Trolling Author) for a reason. Consider yourself warned.
A quick set of outside links:
- Mauling Snarks on TVTropes, which has a small pile of mistakes, but I don't have an account and haven't fixed them.
- Taylor Varga Discord, one of the places I hang out and am available.
- My version of the Excuse Generator, because I gave up trying to add to my local copy of the original one when I wanted Taylor Varga references.
YouTube PlaylistSoundcloud Compilation for a reading of Mauling Snarks, produced by @kip. And the Posting Thread for it.
This is my first solo fanfic in a while, and probably the oldest one you will be able to find by me at this point as my previous fanfic websites are all both under different names and long gone. As such I ask that you bear with me as I figure out what I am doing.
The idea for this story came to me when I read a slightly-related idea in a Worm ideas story on Fanfiction.net. That story no longer exists, and I do not know who the author was. I am taking this story a very different direction than they were headed, in part by kicking the AU aspect up a few notches.
Which brings me to a warning: This is very AU in certain respects, beyond Taylor getting a different power. Some of the changes have roots going back many years before the story starts. Others I am not sure why they are different, but they are. As such, if you see something that doesn't make sense right away due to how canon worked you may want to hold off to see if I explain where things went differently. Or just post, I may have honestly missed something and thus screwed up. Either way.
I appreciate constructive criticism, discussion, omakes, etc. and so forth.
I waited until I had at least 10 chapters after the prologue to start the thread because I hate running into fanfics that start off strong and then get nowhere. I continue to try and maintain at least a 10 chapter buffer. I will not be posting them all right away. Having a buffer is good, having a buffer I can edit to my heart's content because I made a mistake and need to correct for it is better.
When I reach a 15+ chapter buffer I tend to increase my posting rate.Also, a big thanks to the various people who have proof-read my Google Docs files and provided their opinions, most of whom regularly visit the Taylor Varga Discord.
I haven't actually tried to map most of them to SV usernames, especially given that I also have to map them from their Google names, but Jonakhensu and mp3.1415player are both included. If any others want to be mentioned let me know.
Last edited:
Prologue
Jacob had finally gotten around to using some of his vacation time, having scheduled time between both of his jobs to visit his brother-in-law and niece. He hadn't seen either since his half-sister's funeral a couple of years ago. To make matters worse, he hadn't heard from them in over a year and he was getting worried.
His occupation as a cape therapist had kept him quite busy, and he was in high demand. Which was one reason he hadn't been able to stop by for the past year. While not nearly as skilled with non-parahumans he still knew enough to suspect that his brother-in-law had fallen too far into depression and his niece was most likely all but on her own.
Pulling up to their house in his rental car he noted that the downstairs lights were on. Coupled with the car in the driveway that meant that they were, in fact, home. He grabbed his bag and hopped out of the car, heading up to the front door.
Dodging the broken step, which was concerning in that nobody had gotten around to fixing it, he tried the doorbell. Hearing nothing, another bad sign, he rapped on the door. He wasn't expecting his brother-in-law to all but rip the door off the hinges with a panicked look on his face, though.
"Jacob," his brother-in-law finally said, a forlorn look on his face.
"Danny," Jacob answered. "I guess I wasn't who you were expecting?"
"I was hoping Taylor had finally come home," Danny admitted. "Or at least that the police had come with news."
Well didn't that set red flags off.
"Where was she last known to be?" Jacob asked, after realizing that Danny wasn't going to provide more information without prodding. "When did you last see her?"
"I dropped her off at school this morning, watched her walk through the doors, then headed into work. When I got home there was a message on the answering machine from the school, they claimed she was absent today."
"Ok Danny, from what you said earlier I assume you called the police?"
"Of course. Though they said there wasn't much they could likely do unless they got lucky."
"I'm going to go check the school, see if I can spot anything there myself." Jacob then pulled a business card out of a pocket. "Here's one of my cards, in case you can't find my number. Call me if you hear anything."
Danny took the card and, after a moment, took Jacob's bag. "Thanks Jacob, please let me know if you find anything."
"Of course." Jacob headed back to the car. He knew that Taylor had ended up in Winslow, so that is where he headed.
Jacob pulled up to Winslow. He hoped that a janitor was still around to let him in, but wasn't holding out hope given that it was after dark and the lights were out. Still, he made his way to the door, but not before grabbing a small tool bag. Just in case.
As luck would have it, the lock didn't work due to what appeared to be old chewing gum jammed into it, and he was able to walk right in. A quick check out of curiosity showed that they hadn't even bothered to try and lock the door anyway, so either they knew about the gum or normally didn't lock the school after hours. He wasn't sure which was more concerning.
He made his way through the first floor of the school, making cursory checks in all the classrooms and restrooms. Finding nothing he made his way to the second floor, which also netted nothing, though there was an odd feeling in the back of his head. It dawned on him as he was entering the stairwell to head up to the third floor that he should have seen if he could find information on her locker or something in the office. Perhaps he would do that after he cleared the third floor, see if her jacket was here or something?
Of course, that plan didn't last long into entering the third floor hallway, what with the smell. Following his nose led him to a locker that was weeping something horrid. One of the only lockers on the floor with a second lock attached to the outside in addition to the built-in lock. At first he wanted nothing to do with whatever was in that thing, but something was nagging him about it. Deciding that regardless this needed to be investigated he made short work of the additional lock with the aid of a pair of bolt cutters, handling it with gloves just in case they wanted or needed to take fingerprints or something due to the mess, and then he pulled out a small lock pick set.
"I need more practice with these," Jacob mumbled, restarting for the fifth time. Another couple of attempts and he got it, releasing the key override to the locker's built-in combination lock. He then steeled himself for the smell to likely get worse and opened the locker.
He barely reacted in time to catch the body that fell out of the locker, and he ignored the waste spilling out around his feet. It took him a moment to realize that no, this wasn't a corpse, it was breathing. Unfortunately, it was also Taylor. He saw red for a moment, but quickly pushed it down as he had more immediate concerns.
Jacob watched as the ambulance that had responded to his emergency call pulled away. Danny had been informed and was likewise on his way to the same hospital. He would visit the hospital later, after ensuring that nothing was going to screw up the investigation into why and how Taylor was locked in that locker.
He knew there was no way she had locked herself in as a design feature of these lockers would prevent the door from closing if another lock was in the handle. Not to mention that she had been facing into the locker with no room to turn around and thus no way to even try and pull the door shut behind her.
It was a couple of minutes later when a police car showed up, apologizing for taking so long due to the original car having smashed a rim in a particularly bad pothole, and Jacob led them to the scene.
"Did someone let you in?" one of the officers asked as he led them through the unlocked doors. "And if so where are they?"
"Doors were unlocked when I got here," Jacob answered. "In fact, near as I can tell they are all unlocked, like nobody cares to bother locking them. Haven't seen anyone else around, the alarm panel looks like it has been disconnected, and on a whim while waiting I checked and they apparently don't have long distance service on the phones. Not sure if the security cameras work, and if so where the recordings end up, but I wouldn't be surprised if those are more for show, and that everyone in the school knows it."
The officers did not look happy at that.
A couple minutes later initial observations were made and the officers were setting the initial cordon around the locker. Jacob described why he had been there and what he had done into a recorder for when the proper investigators finally arrived, but one of the officers had noted a couple of things Jacob had missed that opened some additional options for him.
Knowing there was nothing for him to do but sit around and worry with Danny at the hospital and that he couldn't poke around the school office for clues he decided to head back to Danny's house. Danny had, after all, given him permission to check for anything Taylor might have left behind that could help explain what had happened.
"Clever," Jacob said a couple hours later, having found a loose floorboard in Taylor's closet, with a notebook and pile of loose papers hidden in it. "Almost missed that, if it hadn't shifted while I was reaching up to feel for seams I likely would have missed it entirely."
Jacob collected the items and moved out into the room proper, where he had enough light to read by. If this turned out to be something personal not related to what had happened at school he would carefully put it back and likely apologize to Taylor for invading her privacy. It didn't take him long to realize that the loose papers were printouts of emails, headers and all. The notebook was a log of events, dated and with details such as whether or not they had been reported to teachers or the school office and what had been done as a result. He suspected the USB drive included contained digital copies of most of the information as well, though he didn't check as he didn't know what passwords Taylor and Danny used for the two somewhat dated computers in the house.
All in all it didn't paint a pretty picture. And if even a tenth of what was documented in the hardcopy alone was accurate then there were going to be some serious consequences for people. Even, or perhaps especially, if he and his associates had to come back on a job to ensure it.
Still, looking back over the names of Taylor's most frequent tormentors he realized that there were two that stuck out. Emma Barnes was, as far as he could recall, Taylor's best friend. What had happened to make them bitter enemies? The other he knew was familiar, but he couldn't figure out where he had heard of Sophia Hess before. Shrugging it off for now, he gathered the evidence, dropped it on top of a box of schoolbooks and such he had found nothing interesting in, and resumed looking just in case this was only one of several stashes.
"Good morning Director Piggot," Jacob said as he entered the office.
"Hello Jacob," Director Piggot said, gesturing for the man to sit across from her. "I heard you were on vacation, but not that you were going to be in the area. And I have told you to call me Emily."
"I came to visit with family," Jacob admitted. "Unfortunately when I showed up, admittedly without prior notice, it was to discover my niece Taylor had gone missing sometime between entering school and making it to homeroom. Which leads me to here."
"That is unfortunate," Emily said. "Moreso as the only reason I can come up with for why you are here is that you found evidence of parahuman involvement."
"Indeed," Jacob said as he pulled out the documentation he had recovered from Taylor's closet and placed on it on the desk. "I found my niece locked in a locker at Winslow, severely injured and unconscious, alongside biohazardous waste. Last I heard they were likely going to need to close the school down until it could be cleaned up. But one of the officers noted that it looked like a tampon was stuck in the metal of the locker. Not to the metal, but in it."
"I see," Emily said, her expression darkening. "That paints an unfortunate picture."
"This stack," Jacob tapped the pile of papers on top of a notebook, "appears to be documentation by my niece of a severe bullying campaign. What little I looked at mentions over a dozen students and indicates that the staff is likely ignoring or actively helping to cover up quite a bit."
Emily took a couple of the sheets off of the top, noting that they were hard copies of emails. This one was from Emma Barnes. If they could prove it was legitimate it was all but a confession that the girl had ruined a class project. After a moment she motioned for Jacob to continue.
"The three main instigators look to be Emma Barnes, who used to be Taylor's best friend but now apparently uses her knowledge to torment Taylor emotionally, Madison Clements, who at a quick glance handles most of the likely academic sabotage due to sharing most of Taylor's classes, and Sophia Hess, who handles most of the physical abuse."
Emily's expression had darkened some more, though Jacob wasn't sure why. He did, however, suspect she knew something, and that there was no way this was going to be swept under the rug. Which was, for now, the important part. It did not take long for him to relay everything else he knew of the situation.
Twenty minutes later Jacob was on his way to the hospital to see how things were going, and to bring Danny a change of clothes and breakfast. Future thought and planning into revenge for all of this, if needed, could wait until he knew how bad off Taylor was. Though if those responsible were lucky the law would deal with them first,
Emily looked over some more of the printed emails, and then flipped through the notebook looking at random pages. She had to stop and calm herself down several times. She took a moment to check the news, seeing a notice that Winslow was indeed closed. She fired off some orders to get PRT squads to Winslow to investigate, though she trusted that Jacob had not mislead her. Finally, she picked up her phone and selected a saved number.
"Good morning Director," Miss Militia answered. "How can I help you today?"
"I wish it were a good morning," Emily replied. "Have you seen the news about Winslow?"
"I was informed a few minutes ago. I assume that there is more going on there?"
"A trusted associate of the PRT brought evidence of parahuman involvement in what could very well be the attempted murder of a student. I need you to come look over some of the evidence."
"I will be there in half an hour."
"How is she?" Jacob asked Danny, noting that he looked horrible. Neither of them had actually gotten any sleep in the past day, though Jacob had kept himself as busy as he could getting things together to ensure that the investigation had the best chance of success.
"They aren't sure she will pull through without parahuman healing," Danny said after a couple of minutes. "At a minimum she will need parahuman healing to avoid needing her legs amputated."
"Has anyone said anything about having sent a request?"
"Apparently Carol Dallon has blocked having her called in on school nights if the patient can wait until her next scheduled visit, but Panacea is still scheduled to be here after school today, they have put Taylor on the top of her list. I already signed all of the waivers needed."
"If Panacea can't help her I have some contacts I can call in too. They may take a day or two to get here, though."
"Thanks Jacob, I don't know what I'd do without her. Losing Annette was bad enough. And I'm sorry for not staying in touch."
"On that front, as much as you hate the idea, I think we need to talk about your fear of cell phones. These days a good pair would allow yours to locate Taylor's if something like this happens again even if she couldn't call for assistance herself."
Danny glared at him, clearly unhappy about this particular topic. "Damn you for using logic and my fears against me."
"Family and friends sometimes need to do that for your own good. I'll even spring for getting a hands-free kit for your car so you don't need to fumble with the phone itself if someone calls while you are driving."
Danny sighed. "I guess it makes sense. I suppose you already know a good model and plan?"
"Of course." Danny wouldn't need to know that he was going to take advantage of his position with the PRT to get something a bit better than normally available. He especially wouldn't need to know that the phones would probably be more powerful than their dated computers at home were.
His occupation as a cape therapist had kept him quite busy, and he was in high demand. Which was one reason he hadn't been able to stop by for the past year. While not nearly as skilled with non-parahumans he still knew enough to suspect that his brother-in-law had fallen too far into depression and his niece was most likely all but on her own.
Pulling up to their house in his rental car he noted that the downstairs lights were on. Coupled with the car in the driveway that meant that they were, in fact, home. He grabbed his bag and hopped out of the car, heading up to the front door.
Dodging the broken step, which was concerning in that nobody had gotten around to fixing it, he tried the doorbell. Hearing nothing, another bad sign, he rapped on the door. He wasn't expecting his brother-in-law to all but rip the door off the hinges with a panicked look on his face, though.
"Jacob," his brother-in-law finally said, a forlorn look on his face.
"Danny," Jacob answered. "I guess I wasn't who you were expecting?"
"I was hoping Taylor had finally come home," Danny admitted. "Or at least that the police had come with news."
Well didn't that set red flags off.
"Where was she last known to be?" Jacob asked, after realizing that Danny wasn't going to provide more information without prodding. "When did you last see her?"
"I dropped her off at school this morning, watched her walk through the doors, then headed into work. When I got home there was a message on the answering machine from the school, they claimed she was absent today."
"Ok Danny, from what you said earlier I assume you called the police?"
"Of course. Though they said there wasn't much they could likely do unless they got lucky."
"I'm going to go check the school, see if I can spot anything there myself." Jacob then pulled a business card out of a pocket. "Here's one of my cards, in case you can't find my number. Call me if you hear anything."
Danny took the card and, after a moment, took Jacob's bag. "Thanks Jacob, please let me know if you find anything."
"Of course." Jacob headed back to the car. He knew that Taylor had ended up in Winslow, so that is where he headed.
Jacob pulled up to Winslow. He hoped that a janitor was still around to let him in, but wasn't holding out hope given that it was after dark and the lights were out. Still, he made his way to the door, but not before grabbing a small tool bag. Just in case.
As luck would have it, the lock didn't work due to what appeared to be old chewing gum jammed into it, and he was able to walk right in. A quick check out of curiosity showed that they hadn't even bothered to try and lock the door anyway, so either they knew about the gum or normally didn't lock the school after hours. He wasn't sure which was more concerning.
He made his way through the first floor of the school, making cursory checks in all the classrooms and restrooms. Finding nothing he made his way to the second floor, which also netted nothing, though there was an odd feeling in the back of his head. It dawned on him as he was entering the stairwell to head up to the third floor that he should have seen if he could find information on her locker or something in the office. Perhaps he would do that after he cleared the third floor, see if her jacket was here or something?
Of course, that plan didn't last long into entering the third floor hallway, what with the smell. Following his nose led him to a locker that was weeping something horrid. One of the only lockers on the floor with a second lock attached to the outside in addition to the built-in lock. At first he wanted nothing to do with whatever was in that thing, but something was nagging him about it. Deciding that regardless this needed to be investigated he made short work of the additional lock with the aid of a pair of bolt cutters, handling it with gloves just in case they wanted or needed to take fingerprints or something due to the mess, and then he pulled out a small lock pick set.
"I need more practice with these," Jacob mumbled, restarting for the fifth time. Another couple of attempts and he got it, releasing the key override to the locker's built-in combination lock. He then steeled himself for the smell to likely get worse and opened the locker.
He barely reacted in time to catch the body that fell out of the locker, and he ignored the waste spilling out around his feet. It took him a moment to realize that no, this wasn't a corpse, it was breathing. Unfortunately, it was also Taylor. He saw red for a moment, but quickly pushed it down as he had more immediate concerns.
Jacob watched as the ambulance that had responded to his emergency call pulled away. Danny had been informed and was likewise on his way to the same hospital. He would visit the hospital later, after ensuring that nothing was going to screw up the investigation into why and how Taylor was locked in that locker.
He knew there was no way she had locked herself in as a design feature of these lockers would prevent the door from closing if another lock was in the handle. Not to mention that she had been facing into the locker with no room to turn around and thus no way to even try and pull the door shut behind her.
It was a couple of minutes later when a police car showed up, apologizing for taking so long due to the original car having smashed a rim in a particularly bad pothole, and Jacob led them to the scene.
"Did someone let you in?" one of the officers asked as he led them through the unlocked doors. "And if so where are they?"
"Doors were unlocked when I got here," Jacob answered. "In fact, near as I can tell they are all unlocked, like nobody cares to bother locking them. Haven't seen anyone else around, the alarm panel looks like it has been disconnected, and on a whim while waiting I checked and they apparently don't have long distance service on the phones. Not sure if the security cameras work, and if so where the recordings end up, but I wouldn't be surprised if those are more for show, and that everyone in the school knows it."
The officers did not look happy at that.
A couple minutes later initial observations were made and the officers were setting the initial cordon around the locker. Jacob described why he had been there and what he had done into a recorder for when the proper investigators finally arrived, but one of the officers had noted a couple of things Jacob had missed that opened some additional options for him.
Knowing there was nothing for him to do but sit around and worry with Danny at the hospital and that he couldn't poke around the school office for clues he decided to head back to Danny's house. Danny had, after all, given him permission to check for anything Taylor might have left behind that could help explain what had happened.
"Clever," Jacob said a couple hours later, having found a loose floorboard in Taylor's closet, with a notebook and pile of loose papers hidden in it. "Almost missed that, if it hadn't shifted while I was reaching up to feel for seams I likely would have missed it entirely."
Jacob collected the items and moved out into the room proper, where he had enough light to read by. If this turned out to be something personal not related to what had happened at school he would carefully put it back and likely apologize to Taylor for invading her privacy. It didn't take him long to realize that the loose papers were printouts of emails, headers and all. The notebook was a log of events, dated and with details such as whether or not they had been reported to teachers or the school office and what had been done as a result. He suspected the USB drive included contained digital copies of most of the information as well, though he didn't check as he didn't know what passwords Taylor and Danny used for the two somewhat dated computers in the house.
All in all it didn't paint a pretty picture. And if even a tenth of what was documented in the hardcopy alone was accurate then there were going to be some serious consequences for people. Even, or perhaps especially, if he and his associates had to come back on a job to ensure it.
Still, looking back over the names of Taylor's most frequent tormentors he realized that there were two that stuck out. Emma Barnes was, as far as he could recall, Taylor's best friend. What had happened to make them bitter enemies? The other he knew was familiar, but he couldn't figure out where he had heard of Sophia Hess before. Shrugging it off for now, he gathered the evidence, dropped it on top of a box of schoolbooks and such he had found nothing interesting in, and resumed looking just in case this was only one of several stashes.
"Good morning Director Piggot," Jacob said as he entered the office.
"Hello Jacob," Director Piggot said, gesturing for the man to sit across from her. "I heard you were on vacation, but not that you were going to be in the area. And I have told you to call me Emily."
"I came to visit with family," Jacob admitted. "Unfortunately when I showed up, admittedly without prior notice, it was to discover my niece Taylor had gone missing sometime between entering school and making it to homeroom. Which leads me to here."
"That is unfortunate," Emily said. "Moreso as the only reason I can come up with for why you are here is that you found evidence of parahuman involvement."
"Indeed," Jacob said as he pulled out the documentation he had recovered from Taylor's closet and placed on it on the desk. "I found my niece locked in a locker at Winslow, severely injured and unconscious, alongside biohazardous waste. Last I heard they were likely going to need to close the school down until it could be cleaned up. But one of the officers noted that it looked like a tampon was stuck in the metal of the locker. Not to the metal, but in it."
"I see," Emily said, her expression darkening. "That paints an unfortunate picture."
"This stack," Jacob tapped the pile of papers on top of a notebook, "appears to be documentation by my niece of a severe bullying campaign. What little I looked at mentions over a dozen students and indicates that the staff is likely ignoring or actively helping to cover up quite a bit."
Emily took a couple of the sheets off of the top, noting that they were hard copies of emails. This one was from Emma Barnes. If they could prove it was legitimate it was all but a confession that the girl had ruined a class project. After a moment she motioned for Jacob to continue.
"The three main instigators look to be Emma Barnes, who used to be Taylor's best friend but now apparently uses her knowledge to torment Taylor emotionally, Madison Clements, who at a quick glance handles most of the likely academic sabotage due to sharing most of Taylor's classes, and Sophia Hess, who handles most of the physical abuse."
Emily's expression had darkened some more, though Jacob wasn't sure why. He did, however, suspect she knew something, and that there was no way this was going to be swept under the rug. Which was, for now, the important part. It did not take long for him to relay everything else he knew of the situation.
Twenty minutes later Jacob was on his way to the hospital to see how things were going, and to bring Danny a change of clothes and breakfast. Future thought and planning into revenge for all of this, if needed, could wait until he knew how bad off Taylor was. Though if those responsible were lucky the law would deal with them first,
Emily looked over some more of the printed emails, and then flipped through the notebook looking at random pages. She had to stop and calm herself down several times. She took a moment to check the news, seeing a notice that Winslow was indeed closed. She fired off some orders to get PRT squads to Winslow to investigate, though she trusted that Jacob had not mislead her. Finally, she picked up her phone and selected a saved number.
"Good morning Director," Miss Militia answered. "How can I help you today?"
"I wish it were a good morning," Emily replied. "Have you seen the news about Winslow?"
"I was informed a few minutes ago. I assume that there is more going on there?"
"A trusted associate of the PRT brought evidence of parahuman involvement in what could very well be the attempted murder of a student. I need you to come look over some of the evidence."
"I will be there in half an hour."
"How is she?" Jacob asked Danny, noting that he looked horrible. Neither of them had actually gotten any sleep in the past day, though Jacob had kept himself as busy as he could getting things together to ensure that the investigation had the best chance of success.
"They aren't sure she will pull through without parahuman healing," Danny said after a couple of minutes. "At a minimum she will need parahuman healing to avoid needing her legs amputated."
"Has anyone said anything about having sent a request?"
"Apparently Carol Dallon has blocked having her called in on school nights if the patient can wait until her next scheduled visit, but Panacea is still scheduled to be here after school today, they have put Taylor on the top of her list. I already signed all of the waivers needed."
"If Panacea can't help her I have some contacts I can call in too. They may take a day or two to get here, though."
"Thanks Jacob, I don't know what I'd do without her. Losing Annette was bad enough. And I'm sorry for not staying in touch."
"On that front, as much as you hate the idea, I think we need to talk about your fear of cell phones. These days a good pair would allow yours to locate Taylor's if something like this happens again even if she couldn't call for assistance herself."
Danny glared at him, clearly unhappy about this particular topic. "Damn you for using logic and my fears against me."
"Family and friends sometimes need to do that for your own good. I'll even spring for getting a hands-free kit for your car so you don't need to fumble with the phone itself if someone calls while you are driving."
Danny sighed. "I guess it makes sense. I suppose you already know a good model and plan?"
"Of course." Danny wouldn't need to know that he was going to take advantage of his position with the PRT to get something a bit better than normally available. He especially wouldn't need to know that the phones would probably be more powerful than their dated computers at home were.
Chapter 1
Taylor winced a little as she opened her eyes. A quick glance around her and she knew that she was in a hospital, though not which one. Her father was on her left and Panacea was on her right. Which probably meant she was in Brockton General. She could tell Panacea was still working, though, and she didn't think she would be able to speak yet.
Ooooh, Panacea has a snark. Hello!
[Query]
Well, you are there, it would be rude to ignore you. How are you?
[Boredom]
Awww, why are you bored?
[Repetition. Monotony.]
Well, I suppose it would be boring only working at healing humans all the time. Or perhaps just animals? How do you feel about plants?
Oooh, tingly throat. "Hello?" Dang, that was barely a whisper.
[Interest. Curiosity. Despair.]
Why wouldn't she..oh, right, she is likely afraid of being seen like Nilbog. But that isn't her fault. Maybe she just needs a poke?
"Sorry about that, try again?" Panacea said.
"Hello?" Taylor tried again. Much better. "You should buy a greenhouse." Panacea blinked. Taylor then turned to look at her father, who appeared to be slightly in shock, and like he hadn't slept in a day or two. "Hi dad." Crap, the last thing she remembered before waking up here was getting shoved into a locker, which means dad must know about the bullying now. Either that or someone at Winslow is much better at covering up than she would expect.
"Taylor," Danny said, carefully leaning over to hug her. "Why didn't you tell me? Jacob said your notes went back months."
Jacob? Uncle Jacob? Wow, she hadn't spoken to or heard from him for a while. Wait, he found her notes? Why was he in her closet?
"Why a greenhouse?" Panacea muttered.
"So that you and your snark can play with the plants, of course," Taylor answered. "So that your snark doesn't drive you crazy with boredom." Huh, that was straightforward, why did Panacea look confused?
Ooooh, could you and Panacea make rainbow roses?
[Affirmative]
I may want some of those!
"So is Uncle Jacob here?" Taylor asked. Danny looked confused.
"Yea," Danny finally answered. "He's waiting outside."
"Not that I want to interrupt," Panacea said. "But there are a couple of things we need to talk about."
Danny sat back in his chair and they both looked towards Panacea. One should always pay attention to the doctor when they tell you things, you might not recover properly otherwise.
"To start with, Taylor, you are going to be quite hungry for a few days," Panacea started. "You will need to eat quite a bit more as you recover."
"I'll make sure she eats plenty," Danny said.
"You will also want to avoid anything too strenuous for the same few days," Panacea continued. "I did what I could, but I can't heal the remnants of your concussion."
No brains?
[Annoyance]
Oh, she is just afraid to touch brains. I guess that makes sense, given that a mistake could change someone in who knows what ways.
"We have a family member that should be able to help keep an eye on her," Danny said. "Even if it annoys her while she recovers."
"Lastly, I am required by law to inform you that Taylor triggered in the past 48 hours," Panacea said. "Before you ask, I can see that her brain is still healing from the trigger event, which was most likely in the locker she was locked inside of. In another day or two I wouldn't be able to tell anymore." She then pulled out a few pamphlets from a bag she had with her and handed them to Danny. "These cover some details about dealing with the aftermath of trigger events, contact numbers for the PRT and Protectorate, the unwritten rules and how they generally work, and how New Wave works and how to contact us. The latter is more of a courtesy, the law only requires that I provide the first couple when a minor is found to have triggered recently."
"How can you give us a copy of the unwritten rules if they are unwritten?" Taylor asked. Because that totally made no sense.
"Obviously they are typed and not written," Panacea deadpanned. Huh, she had that response ready, she must get that one a lot. "More seriously, in this case unwritten mostly refers to the fact that they aren't, in fact, laws."
"Do you have to report that she triggered?" Danny asked.
"I am actually required to keep it a secret," Panacea answered. "Similar to Doctor/Patient rules. Some of that is covered in the unwritten rules pamphlet, and that is one of the few things that does, in fact, have a legal basis. At any rate, you are encouraged to talk to the PRT about power testing, even if Taylor doesn't join the Wards. All of New Wave has done so, they can sometimes find aspects of powers that weren't immediately obvious."
"Thank you," Taylor said. Now that she thought about it, probably a good idea to be on the good side of someone who could probably turn you into a particularly unruly shrubbery if you pissed her off. "For everything."
"You are welcome," Panacea said. "Now then, unless you want others to know that Taylor has triggered you may want to hide the pamphlets for the time being. Have a nice day."
Panacea left as Danny put the pamphlets into a folder he had with him. A minute later Uncle Jacob came in. Taylor did not get a chance to say hello before Uncle Jacob had come over and wrapped her up in a hug.
Oooh. Hello there, you partnered with my uncle?
[Affirmation]
How are you?
[Content]
Good for you. Plenty of variety there?
[...Affirmation. Dejection?]
Plenty of parahumans, but he rarely looks for new kinds of blades? Huh. Maybe I should look into getting him a sword for Christmas.
[Interest. Excitement.]
"I'm sorry I searched your room," Uncle Jacob finally said. Huh? Oh, right, dad said something about that. "But we needed to know who may have locked you in that locker."
"It's alright," Taylor answered. For some reason she knew that Uncle Jacob got her out of the locker, and that later he slipped on the loose floorboard while looking for places up higher? "Why were you looking for places up high in my closet? There has never been anything up there that I know of."
"Because a lot of houses have access panels for things hidden in closets, some of which end up being accessible dead space later," Uncle Jacob answered. Then froze. "How did you know that?"
"I think your snark showed me," Taylor answered.
[Affirmation]
"Yea, your snark just told me that it did," Taylor continued. "Was it not supposed to?"
Uncle Jacob looked over at Danny. "I think we are going to need to chat when we get back to your house."
"Most likely," Danny answered, giving both of them a look.
"Can we stop at Fugly's?" Taylor asked. "I'm starving."
Taylor ended up going home with her father while Jacob swung by Fugly's. On the way home she was informed that, regardless of when Winslow re-opened, she wasn't going back there. Which led to a quick explanation that her locker had been so bad that the school had to be closed until it was decontaminated.
She didn't think it was that bad, herself, but then again she barely remembered entering the locker. Which kinda made her happy, actually, because that meant she didn't have to remember any of her apparent twelve or more hours trapped in the thing. On the other hand, that meant she had a bad enough head injury that she wasn't storing memories correctly, which was a bad thing. Perhaps she should just leave that alone.
Once they made it home Taylor grabbed a bag of chips to snack on while she read the pamphlets Panacea had provided. Her father cleaned up the mess that he had left the day before (was it really only a day?) when he had rushed to the hospital. She had offered to help, but was barred from doing so because she was supposed to be taking it easy.
Uncle Jacob arrived with enough takeout for five people just after Taylor had finished reading the last pamphlet. Apparently New Wave offered various forms of advice and assistance even if you didn't join, especially legal help for recent triggers needing it, especially in cases where the recent trigger injured someone before they even realized they had triggered. After giving it some thought Taylor didn't think joining New Wave would be a good idea, though, as the loss of Fleur did not have them allow capes to join without going public with their identity and as much as the unwritten rules were supposed to protect the families of capes her father had no powers of his own.
As they sat down to eat a silent agreement was reached that they would talk after dinner was consumed. Taylor surprised herself by eating a little more than twice what she normally would, but Panacea had said she was going to be unusually hungry. Uncle Jacob and her father finished the rest off, showing that they had not eaten much themselves over the past day.
Still, the reprieve from the coming discussion had to end eventually. It lasted slightly longer as she was once again relegated to 'resting' while Uncle Jacob and her father cleaned up. So far it wasn't quite at the level of being annoying, but she suspected it would not be long before she was going to annoyed at the two of them not letting her do anything.
Finally everyone was sitting around the table with a drink each, the pamphlets having been placed between them. Danny had opted for a coffee while Jacob and Taylor had cups of tea.
"You will want to read these later," Jacob said to Danny, gesturing at the pamphlets. "But I already know what they say and Taylor has read them." He picked up the unwritten rules pamphlet. "This one is one of the more important for Taylor, though."
"Because unlike most capes I automatically identify that people are parahumans," Taylor supplied. "As such I need to keep that a secret, especially when they are out of costume."
"More so than that," Jacob said, looking at Taylor. "I suspect you get enough information to identify which parahuman they are. My abilities let me identify conscious parahumans automatically, but only that they are parahumans, though that isn't quite working with you. I have to go to some effort to figure out which parahuman they might be if I want to know that, and even then I usually have to interact with them to do so."
"Yea, I am not sure I can stop myself from figuring some of that out," Taylor admitted. "I will have to try and focus more on the person when they are not in costume, I guess? For some reason it became easier with you, but I think that is because your snark is trying to stay silent."
"Let's go back to the fact that you are a parahuman," Danny said, looking at Jacob. "Which I was previously unaware of and am interested in the story behind it, or at least as much as you are willing to tell us. Also, did Annette know?"
"Yes, well, there are reasons for the secrecy," Jacob said. "Amongst them that my situation is a bit more unusual than most. Annette did know, though, and likely would have gotten in touch with me the instant anyone else in the family triggered anyway when she was alive."
"Your snark did tell me enough to identify you before it went silent," Taylor said, looking at her uncle. "I am quite curious. How did Jack Slash end up working with the PRT?"
The answer was delayed a bit by Danny having to recover from choking on his coffee, including cleaning the table up and getting him a new shirt. Eventually, though, Jacob was able to answer.
"Back when the Slaughterhouse Nine first started up things were just as bad as you would expect," Jacob started. "But it didn't take long for some of us to realize that running around killing indiscriminately was a bad idea. King, however, didn't agree, and couldn't be convinced otherwise. It didn't take me long to realize that a mental component of his power made it so he never would be convinced otherwise. I believe that was when I realized that my power had a thinker component that helped me understand and generally communicate other parahumans, in fact." Jacob took a sip of his tea, a bit of a distant look on his face as he thought back. "When we were finally able to kill King that left the problem of what to do with the members that couldn't be redeemed. I was personally happy that Grey Boy was already out of the picture, as King was the only one that could deal with him at the time, but we had to carefully arrange for some of the others to be killed off without drawing suspicion that it was intentional. At least until only one was left, anyway. Luckily I had already started working with the PRT on that, in part thanks to Harbinger's help." Jacob took a moment to look at the two of them. "Yes, he is still around, no I won't tell you where or what he is doing." Danny and Taylor nodded. "Right, at any rate now the nine are more of a support group for capes that need violence to stay sane, targeting those that are known to have evaded justice for their crimes to sate those that need it to not turn to crime themselves."
"That...sounds a bit unbelievable," Danny finally said. "Especially with what the current members of the nine frequently do."
"They do less wanton violence than you would expect," Jacob said. "For example, I think I have killed all of five people in the past two years, only one was a cape, yet have a couple hundred supposed kills in that time period due to being blamed for collateral damage from gang members. Mostly the idiots that fell on their own knives, I think. I never did bother trying to figure out why I was being blamed. The others have similar things going on, reputation has caused massively inflated numbers."
"How much are you allowed to tell us about the other members?" Taylor asked after they had digested that. "Given that you seem to be claiming there are good reasons for them to participate in those activities in the first place?"
"Well," Jacob pondered. "I suppose so long as I don't tell you civilian names I can cover the basics of all of them." He went on to give details on each current member of the nine and why they were there, starting with himself.
Jack Slash, as Jacob's cape identity, functioned more as a PRT liaison and therapist than anything else, monitoring the others and trying to keep them from going too far. He did have his own non-cape therapist he had to visit as well, because he was able to see that his powers had affected his mentality too. While he tried to mainly use scare tactics he would occasionally need to step in and attack directly, mainly doing so when Bonesaw ended up over her head and the Siberian was otherwise occupied. That was the type of situation that resulted in his one cape kill in the past year.
Speaking of Bonesaw, she had triggered at a young age, and it didn't take long to find out that her powers pushed her to experiment on living humans, especially parahumans. Once that experimentation has borne results she is free to use what she learns in more controlled situations, but her power insists on pain and torture during the experimentation phase. Thus she gets pointed at villainous parahumans who have escaped justice and gang members with sufficient crimes on their records to experiment with new techniques before her urges get too strong to ignore and she starts going after anyone around her.
The Siberian is complicated, but has minimal drive to actually cause harm and as such has ended up being more of an enforcer within the nine, most outright kills being their specific parahuman targets that were otherwise hard to deal with or collateral damage incidents in fights with gang members, many of those while keeping an eye on Bonesaw. Taylor got the impression that there was something else Jacob knew that he was avoiding saying, mainly because his snark kept almost letting something through to her.
Mannequin is known to have major mental issues and a death-wish, being broken in some way that Jacob can't find. One of the only reasons he hasn't been put out of his misery is that he is willing to be pointed at specific parahuman targets while they try and find a way to heal him. A side effect of his issues is that he tends to ignore bystanders when fighting, so he does have a number of innocent kills. Jacob personally figured that in some of those cases it was a matter of taking idiots out of the gene pool, given that they had stuck around to watch dangerous capes fight instead of getting out of the way, though admitted that might be his power talking. His therapist apparently brings that up every few sessions to keep him from forgetting.
Crawler is driven to find someone who might be able and willing to kill him, in general. He can't help it and goes stir-crazy if he goes too long without entering a serious fight with someone new. The fact that only the worst villains are generally willing to try and kill him instead of capturing means it is fairly easy to direct him at the right targets. Jacob did mention that everyone wished they had a decent way to get him to Endbringer fights, but he never seemed to be able to get to a rally point in time.
Shatterbird has two modes to her power, though he wouldn't describe the lesser-known one, and she is driven to use the more destructive mode in populated areas frequently. If she doesn't intentionally use the destructive mode in that way for long enough it tends to go off while she is sleeping, staying out of control until she wakes up. Due to the need for the areas to be populated they try and aim for gang-infested territories for her, but collateral damage is an unfortunate fact of life with her. Jacob admitted, though he probably shouldn't have, that when not running around as Shatterbird she operated as a Protectorate hero. But he didn't say which one, or where she was stationed.
Hatchet Face Jacob was lucky with, for some reason his power only disabled the blade projection portion of "Jack's" power, so Jacob was able to get close to him and used some mid-battle therapy to get him recovering from the trauma of his trigger event. He still has a drive to kill parahumans, though, a need that will build into him going on a rampage if he doesn't give into it every so often. So long as he so much as makes serious attempts often enough he remains sane enough to not go after people indiscriminately. To get maximum utility out of the smallest number of parahumans being targeted by the nine he generally ends up finishing off those that Bonesaw experimented on, meaning Bonesaw technically has a surprisingly small lifetime parahuman kill count.
Finally, Burnscar apparently suffers in different ways depending on if she uses her powers or not, varying from suicidally depressed when not using them to insanely reckless when using them for too long. It is a delicate balance, and it was discovered that the extremes are buffered quite a bit if she kills someone with her powers every few months. She officially 'joined' the nine shortly after Protectorate thinkers figured that part out. And apparently she has a preference for targeting those that physically abuse others.
"I am still disturbed by the thought that the Slaughterhouse Nine, reportedly some of the most dangerous parahumans out there, are actually a therapy group," Danny finally admitted. "Though being affiliated with the PRT would explain why the Triumvirate have never just taken them out." Then he got a worried look. "Are you going to be in trouble for telling us any of this?"
"Nope," Jacob answered, grinning a bit. "I ensured that I would be permitted to explain to family in the event of another family member triggering. Specifically the entire immediate family of and/or those already living with any family member that triggered. The likelihood of similar powers alone warranted caution in the secrecy part of the contracts given my cape identity. Though now that it has come up I suspect they are going to kick themselves when they realize that they forgot to include getting said family to sign NDAs in the conditions that allow me to tell you all of this."
Some more small talk and finishing of their drinks was all that happened after that. They would likely get into more serious discussions about how to handle things the following day.
Taylor was right about things starting to get annoying when she was shuffled off to bed after her first yawn, not even allowed to rinse her own teacup. Jacob followed Taylor upstairs (because apparently she was too fragile right now to be trusted to stairs? Really?) and, after some hovering to ensure she was ok throughout the entire preparing for bed dance, headed to the guest room.
Then again, once she was in bed Taylor lasted all of five minutes before slipping into dreams, so perhaps some caution may have been warranted.
Ooooh, Panacea has a snark. Hello!
[Query]
Well, you are there, it would be rude to ignore you. How are you?
[Boredom]
Awww, why are you bored?
[Repetition. Monotony.]
Well, I suppose it would be boring only working at healing humans all the time. Or perhaps just animals? How do you feel about plants?
Oooh, tingly throat. "Hello?" Dang, that was barely a whisper.
[Interest. Curiosity. Despair.]
Why wouldn't she..oh, right, she is likely afraid of being seen like Nilbog. But that isn't her fault. Maybe she just needs a poke?
"Sorry about that, try again?" Panacea said.
"Hello?" Taylor tried again. Much better. "You should buy a greenhouse." Panacea blinked. Taylor then turned to look at her father, who appeared to be slightly in shock, and like he hadn't slept in a day or two. "Hi dad." Crap, the last thing she remembered before waking up here was getting shoved into a locker, which means dad must know about the bullying now. Either that or someone at Winslow is much better at covering up than she would expect.
"Taylor," Danny said, carefully leaning over to hug her. "Why didn't you tell me? Jacob said your notes went back months."
Jacob? Uncle Jacob? Wow, she hadn't spoken to or heard from him for a while. Wait, he found her notes? Why was he in her closet?
"Why a greenhouse?" Panacea muttered.
"So that you and your snark can play with the plants, of course," Taylor answered. "So that your snark doesn't drive you crazy with boredom." Huh, that was straightforward, why did Panacea look confused?
Ooooh, could you and Panacea make rainbow roses?
[Affirmative]
I may want some of those!
"So is Uncle Jacob here?" Taylor asked. Danny looked confused.
"Yea," Danny finally answered. "He's waiting outside."
"Not that I want to interrupt," Panacea said. "But there are a couple of things we need to talk about."
Danny sat back in his chair and they both looked towards Panacea. One should always pay attention to the doctor when they tell you things, you might not recover properly otherwise.
"To start with, Taylor, you are going to be quite hungry for a few days," Panacea started. "You will need to eat quite a bit more as you recover."
"I'll make sure she eats plenty," Danny said.
"You will also want to avoid anything too strenuous for the same few days," Panacea continued. "I did what I could, but I can't heal the remnants of your concussion."
No brains?
[Annoyance]
Oh, she is just afraid to touch brains. I guess that makes sense, given that a mistake could change someone in who knows what ways.
"We have a family member that should be able to help keep an eye on her," Danny said. "Even if it annoys her while she recovers."
"Lastly, I am required by law to inform you that Taylor triggered in the past 48 hours," Panacea said. "Before you ask, I can see that her brain is still healing from the trigger event, which was most likely in the locker she was locked inside of. In another day or two I wouldn't be able to tell anymore." She then pulled out a few pamphlets from a bag she had with her and handed them to Danny. "These cover some details about dealing with the aftermath of trigger events, contact numbers for the PRT and Protectorate, the unwritten rules and how they generally work, and how New Wave works and how to contact us. The latter is more of a courtesy, the law only requires that I provide the first couple when a minor is found to have triggered recently."
"How can you give us a copy of the unwritten rules if they are unwritten?" Taylor asked. Because that totally made no sense.
"Obviously they are typed and not written," Panacea deadpanned. Huh, she had that response ready, she must get that one a lot. "More seriously, in this case unwritten mostly refers to the fact that they aren't, in fact, laws."
"Do you have to report that she triggered?" Danny asked.
"I am actually required to keep it a secret," Panacea answered. "Similar to Doctor/Patient rules. Some of that is covered in the unwritten rules pamphlet, and that is one of the few things that does, in fact, have a legal basis. At any rate, you are encouraged to talk to the PRT about power testing, even if Taylor doesn't join the Wards. All of New Wave has done so, they can sometimes find aspects of powers that weren't immediately obvious."
"Thank you," Taylor said. Now that she thought about it, probably a good idea to be on the good side of someone who could probably turn you into a particularly unruly shrubbery if you pissed her off. "For everything."
"You are welcome," Panacea said. "Now then, unless you want others to know that Taylor has triggered you may want to hide the pamphlets for the time being. Have a nice day."
Panacea left as Danny put the pamphlets into a folder he had with him. A minute later Uncle Jacob came in. Taylor did not get a chance to say hello before Uncle Jacob had come over and wrapped her up in a hug.
Oooh. Hello there, you partnered with my uncle?
[Affirmation]
How are you?
[Content]
Good for you. Plenty of variety there?
[...Affirmation. Dejection?]
Plenty of parahumans, but he rarely looks for new kinds of blades? Huh. Maybe I should look into getting him a sword for Christmas.
[Interest. Excitement.]
"I'm sorry I searched your room," Uncle Jacob finally said. Huh? Oh, right, dad said something about that. "But we needed to know who may have locked you in that locker."
"It's alright," Taylor answered. For some reason she knew that Uncle Jacob got her out of the locker, and that later he slipped on the loose floorboard while looking for places up higher? "Why were you looking for places up high in my closet? There has never been anything up there that I know of."
"Because a lot of houses have access panels for things hidden in closets, some of which end up being accessible dead space later," Uncle Jacob answered. Then froze. "How did you know that?"
"I think your snark showed me," Taylor answered.
[Affirmation]
"Yea, your snark just told me that it did," Taylor continued. "Was it not supposed to?"
Uncle Jacob looked over at Danny. "I think we are going to need to chat when we get back to your house."
"Most likely," Danny answered, giving both of them a look.
"Can we stop at Fugly's?" Taylor asked. "I'm starving."
Taylor ended up going home with her father while Jacob swung by Fugly's. On the way home she was informed that, regardless of when Winslow re-opened, she wasn't going back there. Which led to a quick explanation that her locker had been so bad that the school had to be closed until it was decontaminated.
She didn't think it was that bad, herself, but then again she barely remembered entering the locker. Which kinda made her happy, actually, because that meant she didn't have to remember any of her apparent twelve or more hours trapped in the thing. On the other hand, that meant she had a bad enough head injury that she wasn't storing memories correctly, which was a bad thing. Perhaps she should just leave that alone.
Once they made it home Taylor grabbed a bag of chips to snack on while she read the pamphlets Panacea had provided. Her father cleaned up the mess that he had left the day before (was it really only a day?) when he had rushed to the hospital. She had offered to help, but was barred from doing so because she was supposed to be taking it easy.
Uncle Jacob arrived with enough takeout for five people just after Taylor had finished reading the last pamphlet. Apparently New Wave offered various forms of advice and assistance even if you didn't join, especially legal help for recent triggers needing it, especially in cases where the recent trigger injured someone before they even realized they had triggered. After giving it some thought Taylor didn't think joining New Wave would be a good idea, though, as the loss of Fleur did not have them allow capes to join without going public with their identity and as much as the unwritten rules were supposed to protect the families of capes her father had no powers of his own.
As they sat down to eat a silent agreement was reached that they would talk after dinner was consumed. Taylor surprised herself by eating a little more than twice what she normally would, but Panacea had said she was going to be unusually hungry. Uncle Jacob and her father finished the rest off, showing that they had not eaten much themselves over the past day.
Still, the reprieve from the coming discussion had to end eventually. It lasted slightly longer as she was once again relegated to 'resting' while Uncle Jacob and her father cleaned up. So far it wasn't quite at the level of being annoying, but she suspected it would not be long before she was going to annoyed at the two of them not letting her do anything.
Finally everyone was sitting around the table with a drink each, the pamphlets having been placed between them. Danny had opted for a coffee while Jacob and Taylor had cups of tea.
"You will want to read these later," Jacob said to Danny, gesturing at the pamphlets. "But I already know what they say and Taylor has read them." He picked up the unwritten rules pamphlet. "This one is one of the more important for Taylor, though."
"Because unlike most capes I automatically identify that people are parahumans," Taylor supplied. "As such I need to keep that a secret, especially when they are out of costume."
"More so than that," Jacob said, looking at Taylor. "I suspect you get enough information to identify which parahuman they are. My abilities let me identify conscious parahumans automatically, but only that they are parahumans, though that isn't quite working with you. I have to go to some effort to figure out which parahuman they might be if I want to know that, and even then I usually have to interact with them to do so."
"Yea, I am not sure I can stop myself from figuring some of that out," Taylor admitted. "I will have to try and focus more on the person when they are not in costume, I guess? For some reason it became easier with you, but I think that is because your snark is trying to stay silent."
"Let's go back to the fact that you are a parahuman," Danny said, looking at Jacob. "Which I was previously unaware of and am interested in the story behind it, or at least as much as you are willing to tell us. Also, did Annette know?"
"Yes, well, there are reasons for the secrecy," Jacob said. "Amongst them that my situation is a bit more unusual than most. Annette did know, though, and likely would have gotten in touch with me the instant anyone else in the family triggered anyway when she was alive."
"Your snark did tell me enough to identify you before it went silent," Taylor said, looking at her uncle. "I am quite curious. How did Jack Slash end up working with the PRT?"
The answer was delayed a bit by Danny having to recover from choking on his coffee, including cleaning the table up and getting him a new shirt. Eventually, though, Jacob was able to answer.
"Back when the Slaughterhouse Nine first started up things were just as bad as you would expect," Jacob started. "But it didn't take long for some of us to realize that running around killing indiscriminately was a bad idea. King, however, didn't agree, and couldn't be convinced otherwise. It didn't take me long to realize that a mental component of his power made it so he never would be convinced otherwise. I believe that was when I realized that my power had a thinker component that helped me understand and generally communicate other parahumans, in fact." Jacob took a sip of his tea, a bit of a distant look on his face as he thought back. "When we were finally able to kill King that left the problem of what to do with the members that couldn't be redeemed. I was personally happy that Grey Boy was already out of the picture, as King was the only one that could deal with him at the time, but we had to carefully arrange for some of the others to be killed off without drawing suspicion that it was intentional. At least until only one was left, anyway. Luckily I had already started working with the PRT on that, in part thanks to Harbinger's help." Jacob took a moment to look at the two of them. "Yes, he is still around, no I won't tell you where or what he is doing." Danny and Taylor nodded. "Right, at any rate now the nine are more of a support group for capes that need violence to stay sane, targeting those that are known to have evaded justice for their crimes to sate those that need it to not turn to crime themselves."
"That...sounds a bit unbelievable," Danny finally said. "Especially with what the current members of the nine frequently do."
"They do less wanton violence than you would expect," Jacob said. "For example, I think I have killed all of five people in the past two years, only one was a cape, yet have a couple hundred supposed kills in that time period due to being blamed for collateral damage from gang members. Mostly the idiots that fell on their own knives, I think. I never did bother trying to figure out why I was being blamed. The others have similar things going on, reputation has caused massively inflated numbers."
"How much are you allowed to tell us about the other members?" Taylor asked after they had digested that. "Given that you seem to be claiming there are good reasons for them to participate in those activities in the first place?"
"Well," Jacob pondered. "I suppose so long as I don't tell you civilian names I can cover the basics of all of them." He went on to give details on each current member of the nine and why they were there, starting with himself.
Jack Slash, as Jacob's cape identity, functioned more as a PRT liaison and therapist than anything else, monitoring the others and trying to keep them from going too far. He did have his own non-cape therapist he had to visit as well, because he was able to see that his powers had affected his mentality too. While he tried to mainly use scare tactics he would occasionally need to step in and attack directly, mainly doing so when Bonesaw ended up over her head and the Siberian was otherwise occupied. That was the type of situation that resulted in his one cape kill in the past year.
Speaking of Bonesaw, she had triggered at a young age, and it didn't take long to find out that her powers pushed her to experiment on living humans, especially parahumans. Once that experimentation has borne results she is free to use what she learns in more controlled situations, but her power insists on pain and torture during the experimentation phase. Thus she gets pointed at villainous parahumans who have escaped justice and gang members with sufficient crimes on their records to experiment with new techniques before her urges get too strong to ignore and she starts going after anyone around her.
The Siberian is complicated, but has minimal drive to actually cause harm and as such has ended up being more of an enforcer within the nine, most outright kills being their specific parahuman targets that were otherwise hard to deal with or collateral damage incidents in fights with gang members, many of those while keeping an eye on Bonesaw. Taylor got the impression that there was something else Jacob knew that he was avoiding saying, mainly because his snark kept almost letting something through to her.
Mannequin is known to have major mental issues and a death-wish, being broken in some way that Jacob can't find. One of the only reasons he hasn't been put out of his misery is that he is willing to be pointed at specific parahuman targets while they try and find a way to heal him. A side effect of his issues is that he tends to ignore bystanders when fighting, so he does have a number of innocent kills. Jacob personally figured that in some of those cases it was a matter of taking idiots out of the gene pool, given that they had stuck around to watch dangerous capes fight instead of getting out of the way, though admitted that might be his power talking. His therapist apparently brings that up every few sessions to keep him from forgetting.
Crawler is driven to find someone who might be able and willing to kill him, in general. He can't help it and goes stir-crazy if he goes too long without entering a serious fight with someone new. The fact that only the worst villains are generally willing to try and kill him instead of capturing means it is fairly easy to direct him at the right targets. Jacob did mention that everyone wished they had a decent way to get him to Endbringer fights, but he never seemed to be able to get to a rally point in time.
Shatterbird has two modes to her power, though he wouldn't describe the lesser-known one, and she is driven to use the more destructive mode in populated areas frequently. If she doesn't intentionally use the destructive mode in that way for long enough it tends to go off while she is sleeping, staying out of control until she wakes up. Due to the need for the areas to be populated they try and aim for gang-infested territories for her, but collateral damage is an unfortunate fact of life with her. Jacob admitted, though he probably shouldn't have, that when not running around as Shatterbird she operated as a Protectorate hero. But he didn't say which one, or where she was stationed.
Hatchet Face Jacob was lucky with, for some reason his power only disabled the blade projection portion of "Jack's" power, so Jacob was able to get close to him and used some mid-battle therapy to get him recovering from the trauma of his trigger event. He still has a drive to kill parahumans, though, a need that will build into him going on a rampage if he doesn't give into it every so often. So long as he so much as makes serious attempts often enough he remains sane enough to not go after people indiscriminately. To get maximum utility out of the smallest number of parahumans being targeted by the nine he generally ends up finishing off those that Bonesaw experimented on, meaning Bonesaw technically has a surprisingly small lifetime parahuman kill count.
Finally, Burnscar apparently suffers in different ways depending on if she uses her powers or not, varying from suicidally depressed when not using them to insanely reckless when using them for too long. It is a delicate balance, and it was discovered that the extremes are buffered quite a bit if she kills someone with her powers every few months. She officially 'joined' the nine shortly after Protectorate thinkers figured that part out. And apparently she has a preference for targeting those that physically abuse others.
"I am still disturbed by the thought that the Slaughterhouse Nine, reportedly some of the most dangerous parahumans out there, are actually a therapy group," Danny finally admitted. "Though being affiliated with the PRT would explain why the Triumvirate have never just taken them out." Then he got a worried look. "Are you going to be in trouble for telling us any of this?"
"Nope," Jacob answered, grinning a bit. "I ensured that I would be permitted to explain to family in the event of another family member triggering. Specifically the entire immediate family of and/or those already living with any family member that triggered. The likelihood of similar powers alone warranted caution in the secrecy part of the contracts given my cape identity. Though now that it has come up I suspect they are going to kick themselves when they realize that they forgot to include getting said family to sign NDAs in the conditions that allow me to tell you all of this."
Some more small talk and finishing of their drinks was all that happened after that. They would likely get into more serious discussions about how to handle things the following day.
Taylor was right about things starting to get annoying when she was shuffled off to bed after her first yawn, not even allowed to rinse her own teacup. Jacob followed Taylor upstairs (because apparently she was too fragile right now to be trusted to stairs? Really?) and, after some hovering to ensure she was ok throughout the entire preparing for bed dance, headed to the guest room.
Then again, once she was in bed Taylor lasted all of five minutes before slipping into dreams, so perhaps some caution may have been warranted.
Chapter 2
Taylor woke up the next morning and made her way downstairs. Neither her father nor Uncle Jacob were up yet, but she was hungry and cereal was quick and easy. She took advantage of their not being up to finish up the rest of the dishes that hadn't been cleaned last night too, perhaps they would each assume the other had done them?
Just to be certain she had the information in them down she re-read the pamphlets that were still sitting on the table. Some of the unwritten rules were interesting and apparently a number of groups had compromised on the pamphlet as villain perspectives were included.
For example, killing was generally something nobody was supposed to do. This obviously went out the window entirely if a kill-order was issued on someone, but that was usually only done for those that were already running around killing. Beyond that, though, there was actually a small list of conditions for villains to reference wherein killing someone would not get the heroes on them for it. Things such as those who had repeated escapes from confinement where people had died during the escapes or certain kinds of human masters who were attempting to control or actively controlling the villain or those close to them.
More relevant to her were the specifics regarding identities and those with powers that could connect civilian and cape identities. The PRT and Protectorate apparently had internal rules that prohibited even asking such capes to identify other capes unless a kill order had been issued. Most larger villain groups apparently, at least publically, had similar policies. Human masters like Heartbreaker were one of the few overall exceptions, assuming they were still unknown, as they usually avoided having a cape identity until they were discovered. In that case, though, even the villain groups apparently recommended informing the PRT through channels dedicated for that kind of thing (one of the few sets of contact information actually listed) so that they could investigate, just in case.
Taylor supposed that even villains have standards. Though in this case it could also be pragmatic, nobody wants to fall under that kind of control themselves.
In addition, capes like her that could identify what powers other capes had were encouraged, even when working with the PRT or Protectorate, to keep most of those details between themselves and the cape in question, sticking to observed abilities only. At least for allies and neutrals. Everyone, probably rightfully, assumed that the enemy having such an ability meant that everything you could do was known to whatever group such a cape was a member of after you encountered them. But, and this was the important part, even the villains generally agreed that revealing information gained on someone else's powers only counted as acceptable if the cape being reported on had been in costume or actively using their powers. Getting a read on them while they were in civvies and, say, picking up groceries was considered a bad thing and should never be reported. Apparently whether or not you were in civvies didn't matter, though, only the status of the cape your power was informing you about mattered.
The final exception that stuck out to her, though, was identifying capes in civvies that were working with your group in a non-cape capacity. Sometimes that was merely identifying someone who did not know they had triggered, other times it was identifying someone who was infiltrating. At that point you reported them either to someone higher on the chain than you (ideally as high as you could reasonably get to given your own position in the organization) or, in the case of groups like the PRT and Protectorate, to dedicated contact points. The latter because you never knew when the cape was known to the higher-ups but not to the locals for some reason.
Huh, Uncle Jacob probably fell into that last group, now that she thought about it.
Taylor did wonder where you found the dedicated contact numbers, and a dozen others referred to elsewhere in the unwritten rules pamphlet. Presumably you got a list at some point if you joined up with the PRT or Protectorate, but given their likely rarity in being used where would you keep them safe? Having to go looking could very well tip someone off that you had noticed something they didn't want you to.
Taylor hopped up and grabbed some loose paper and a pencil to take some notes with. Questions like that would eventually bug her, better to write them down and ask. If she wasn't allowed to know Uncle Jacob would likely just tell her that.
After making note of her question she then thought about what they were likely going to need to discuss. She suspected that her father would want her to join the Wards for protection, but Uncle Jacob likely had a better overview of pros and cons there. She made a quick note about that, too. She was still fairly certain that she wouldn't be joining New Wave, though, if only to help protect her father. That and it would be even more of an issue if people made any connection between her powers and Uncle Jacob's.
It was about then that Uncle Jacob wandered downstairs. "Mornin Taylor."
"Good morning Uncle Jacob," Taylor responded. Huh, his snark appeared to still be sleeping. She didn't know they slept at all. "Did you hear if dad was moving yet?"
"I woke him up, actually." He looked at the lack of dishes to be washed. "And I guess I won't tell him that you dealt with the dishes." He then moved to make some tea.
Dang, caught. Oh well, nothing they could do about it. "Not like the dishes were difficult. Or strenuous. Or really any trouble."
"Yea yea, you're not disabled, just don't expect your father to agree." While waiting for water to heat up he checked the fridge. "Want any eggs? Oooh, bacon, that sounds good too."
"Yes please to both," Taylor answered. She might be pushing it after the cereal, but eggs and bacon? Hell yea. "Maybe you can make bacon omelets?"
"Hmm, good idea."
Taylor watched as breakfast, or second breakfast for her, was prepared. Her father wandered in, mumbled something about the dishes to Uncle Jacob, and sat down with the tea Uncle Jacob handed him. He might have preferred coffee, depending on his mood if asked, but the tea was already prepared.
After everyone had eaten their fill the dishes were put aside and Uncle Jacob went and fetched some stuff from the trunk of his rental car. Once again they collected around the table, probably to go over more cape-related things now that they had all had time to digest what they talked about the night before.
Oh, look, Uncle Jacob's snark woke up. Still wasn't being talkative, though. Uncle Jacob was probably trying to keep it from revealing too much by accident.
"So," Jacob started, looking at Taylor. "I can't help be curious, why 'snark'?"
"My snark told me that they metaphorically came from an island across a vast ocean," Taylor answered. "You can't find or capture them through anything resembling normal means and there isn't a true description of most of them."
Jacob and Danny looked at each other, then back at Taylor.
"What?" Taylor asked.
"Your power is a fan of Lewis Carroll?" Danny asked. "How is it a fan of Lewis Carroll?"
"Honestly I think it picked that to troll people," Taylor admitted. "Then used the metaphor as an excuse. But I am ok with that too, honestly."
"That makes a disturbing amount of sense," Jacob said. "Right, now that we have covered that I think we need to go over what options Taylor has going forward. Do either of you have any questions before we start on that?"
"I have one," Taylor said, poking her notes. "How do people in the PRT and Protectorate get and keep track of all the special reporting things the unwritten rules pamphlet mentions?"
"They are pre-programmed into the phones they are issued," Jacob answered. "And regularly updated with changes, actually."
"That should have occurred to me," Taylor said, crossing out the first entry on her notes. "I think the rest of what I have here will come up anyway."
"You have anything Danny?" Jacob asked, turning to Danny.
"Honestly the reporting contacts was bugging me too," Danny admitted. "Just hadn't thought to just ask you. Nothing else I don't think we are going to cover anyway."
"Alrighty then," Jacob said. "Options for Taylor going forward with parahuman abilities. Option one is to do nothing and attempt to go on as though you don't have parahuman abilities. Upsides include that you don't turn your life upside-down. Downsides include that you are almost guaranteed to snap at some point because you aren't getting any use of your powers in."
"That sounds like an undesirable downside," Danny admitted. "Though the dealing with trigger events pamphlet did basically say the same thing."
"Yea, it is a well-documented side effect of having powers," Jacob said. "Option two is to try and operate as an independent parahuman. Success at this will vary with powers, personality, and the local cape climate. Upsides include not being beholden to anyone else. Downsides include likely attempts at forced recruitment from gangs that find your abilities potentially useful and an increased chance of death if your powers drive you to actually fight, which most that have any form of offensive use do."
"That sounds just as unpleasant as the first one," Danny admitted. "Though that brings up a new question. Taylor, what do you know of your powers?"
"Huh," Jacob said. "I can't believe I forgot to ask about that. I guess I thought we already knew?"
"Well my snark says I have a couple of different abilities," Taylor said. "I can communicate with other snarks, obviously. That has side effects of being able to spot other parahumans and apparently while I have been doing things with line of sight I actually have about a four hundred meter range in which I can locate and communicate with snarks?"
"Your power measures in meters?" Danny interrupted. "Why meters?"
"Because it finds imperial units confusing," Taylor replied without any hesitation. Danny and Jacob just nodded, figuring that was as good as they were getting there. "Apparently I should be able to communicate with and somewhat coordinate between all snarks in my range at once without getting confused as well, provided my snark has enough bandwidth available for them all. Also assuming I am not in line of sight mode as well."
"I assume that the coordination would depend on the parahumans cooperating," Jacob said, giving it some thought. "Could still be quite useful if they are willing to act on prods from their powers. Could be useless if they aren't."
"True, that part would be situational, but I suspect a lot of things go that route," Taylor said. "I can also pull what amounts to your trick with blades and other edged weapons, just with blunt objects instead of edged. My snark also says that, like you, Hatchet Face would disable that bit but not my ability to communicate with other snarks. Apparently the communication bits are harder to turn off in general in snarks?"
"That is potentially a very useful piece of general information about powers," Jacob said, making note of it. "In fact, if it passes the PRT thinker checks it may be worth one of the cape information bounty payouts."
"The what?" Danny asked, beating Taylor by virtue of having just taken a breath.
"Oh, right," Jacob said. "That isn't well known, but the PRT pays out money for general information about the background behind how powers work and interact with each other. In this case it is information, likely not able to be acted upon, but probably useful for larger modeling of powers. Thus probably worth a few thousand dollars."
Taylor and Danny sat back for a moment. A seemingly innocent comment about the workings of powers worth a few thousand dollars?
"Right, so then," Jacob said after it was clear the other two were a bit stunned. "Taylor, anything else about your powers you haven't mentioned?"
"Er," Taylor said, blinking. "Not much? Apparently I can direct extra communication bandwidth at specific snarks if I want instead of just the single connection. Not sure what that means beyond having more bandwidth to communicate with, though. That's about it."
"Any specific needs for violence?" Jacob prodded. "Special requirements it wants you to fulfill? Other oddities that could cause problems?"
Taylor thought for a couple of minutes, or rather communicated with her own snark. Finally she spoke up. "I think I will have issues if I don't have snarks around often enough, but I don't have to hunt down new ones or anything. I need to occasionally hit things with the blunt object bit, but it doesn't need to be a living thing often and never needs to cause even minor injuries or damage. Beyond that my snark wants to troll other snarks, or maybe others with snarks? Though that is more of a hobby than a need. Or at least that is the impression I am getting."
"Er, right," Jacob said, blinking. "Usually that kind of thing would come out over a couple weeks of testing and you just asked. Can do you do that for others?"
"Only if their snarks are willing to tell me," Taylor answered.
"Right, right," Jacob said, making some quick notes. "Well, none of that would cause issues with joining the Wards, which I suppose is option 3. We did only bring up two options so far, right?"
"Wards is the third one," Danny agreed. "Upsides and downsides?"
"Upsides include a support structure, assistance with branding, and a decent trust fund," Jacob said. "Downsides include a command structure, assistance with branding, and in some cases annoying restrictions on use of your power."
"Er, why is assistance with branding in both lists?" Taylor asked. "I would think that would only be an upside, really?"
"They tend to have a very narrow view of acceptable," Jacob supplied. "The horror stories some capes have can be quite amusing from the outside."
"Right," Danny said, not quite believing him. Then again, Jacob should have more experience there and clashing opinions were a fact of life with him. "I assume there are more than three options for Taylor."
"Of course," Jacob continued. "She could petition to join The Guild, with most of the same upsides and downsides of joining the Wards. Though with the added downside of likely needing to move."
"Let's not go that route," Danny said. "If anything else, I would find it hard to hire people for the dockworkers here if I lived elsewhere."
"She could also petition to join New Wave," Jacob said. "Smaller support and command structures, more strict branding, no trust fund, and you have to go public with your identity."
"Not happening," Taylor said. "If only because that would paint a bigger potential target on dad's back."
"Moving on then," Jacob said as Danny gave Taylor a somewhat sad smile. "Taylor could also willingly join one of the more villainous organizations. Upsides would include a support structure, downsides include regularly assisting in illegal activities and being much more likely to be injured or killed."
"Not happening," Danny echoed Taylor's comment. "Especially as last I knew she wasn't a druggie, racist, or asian."
"I have been known to poke at video games though," Taylor said, causing Danny and Jacob to look at her. She stared back at the two of them. "What, I'm not allowed to joke now?"
"Yea, right, ok," Jacob said, shaking his head. "I think that covers the remotely realistic options, as Faultline generally only recruits minors that are both Case 53s and have no family, or so I have been led to believe. I am not going to let you decide on anything right now, though."
"Not that I am going to argue, but why not?" Danny asked, looking a little confused.
"Because I have other things that need doing," Jacob said. "Plus any option that ends up with power testing would be strenuous, and thus not implementable right away anyway. That and while I am out dealing with things the two of you should talk things through without me."
Uncle Jacob had, as he said, left to take care of who knows what. Snark detection in "area" mode apparently let Taylor know exactly where a snark-bearer was in relation to her, which would probably use useful, and let her monitor his progress for a couple of blocks as he drove away.
Still, unless she started going out in costume she should probably stay in line of sight mode. Maybe? If any capes were sent after her it would be a good idea to know in advance.
She made a quick note on her list to discuss that conundrum with others.
Her father had suggested they move into the living room and the more comfortable seating there, and she had agreed. She had grabbed a soda for herself from the fridge on her way by while her father called into work to check up on things. Apparently upon finding out that she had been hospitalized he had been told, in no uncertain terms, to take the rest of the week off. He still wanted to make sure everything was ok, though.
Finally he wandered in and collapsed into his preferred chair. "So Taylor, given that all of this will have the most direct effect on you, what do you think about the various options?"
"Obviously I don't intend on joining any of the gangs," Taylor said, finding it hard to imagine being a member of any of the big three in the bay. "Though if they were more about showing off and less into crime then joining up with Über and Leet could have been interesting."
"Not sure how well your powers would mesh with that kind of thing."
"True, still could have been fun to try. New Wave is out because I don't want to paint a target on you, as I said. Pretending to not have powers is probably out as well, if anything else I suspect that I will need more than incidental contact with other parahumans. Which generally leaves being an independent or joining the Wards."
"That sounds about right. What are your thoughts on those?"
"Well, if I go independent then I have no real parahuman support structure, would have to actively look for other parahumans to satisfy my snark, and as a consequence would likely end up in a lot of dangerous situations or, in effect, doing my best to hang out with the Wards. The Wards would give me the support structure and I would automatically be around them fairly often, likely beyond what I could accomplish on my own."
"Not to mention you could meet Armsmaster and Miss Militia, amongst others."
"Trying not to let my inner fangirl influence the decision."
"Right, right."
"You just want me to join the Wards, don't you?"
"Mostly because I think it is the safest option for you right now."
"Well, there we have it. I was leaning that way, you are leaning that way. Why are we discussing it again?"
"To make sure we are on the same page and understand each other?"
"Well, since that is out of the way, I might want to come up with a cape name. Any ideas?"
They would spend a couple of hours discussing possible names from the mundane to the ridiculous and a number in-between. They came up with nothing they were happy with, or thought that the PRT would be happy with, but it helped pass the time.
Uncle Jacob had called and said he would be bringing a slightly late lunch. True to that he showed up with a bag full of subs and chips, a six-pack of soda bottles, and a box he said was for after lunch.
Over lunch they discussed little things of no real consequence to cape dealings. Apparently the news, which Taylor and Danny had not been watching but that Jacob had listened to in the car, was reporting that Winslow may never reopen and that students likely needed to be moved to other schools in the meantime. Apparently the attempt to clean up the 'biohazard spill' had revealed exposed asbestos behind the lockers, which led to a revelation that the building's foundation was damaged due to a minor sinkhole under it.
After lunch the box was placed on the table, and Uncle Jacob paused before opening. "First up, did you two come to a decision regarding what to do going forward?"
"We think I should join the Wards," Taylor answered. "If nothing else that will ensure I don't have issues with having to go hunting for parahumans to be around."
"Good, good," Jacob said. He then opened the box and pulled out two smaller boxes, handing one to each of the other two. "After some discussion with Danny I took the liberty of purchasing a cell phone for each of you. These in particular are now paired and can be used to locate each other, as well as provide information on the last twenty-four hours of location data. Note that if either phone is used for that purpose an alert will come up on the other, offering the option of denying permission, and it will take half an hour for permission to be automatically granted. The PRT, Protectorate, and police all have codes that can be entered that will bypass that time period."
"These look a bit more expensive than I was thinking," Danny said, looking at the box with a 'D' on it. Taylor's had a 'T'. "I am not sure how long it will take me to pay you back."
"You won't be," Jacob said. "These are a gift, from me. The service on them has been pre-paid for the next five years." That was a lie, technically they were being paid monthly from his PRT account. He wasn't telling them that, though. "I ensured that they have a number of contacts entered ahead of time, including the landline here and the other cell phone, plus my cell phone. I also have an easily installed car kit ready to install in your car, Danny, and we can work on installing that in a bit."
"Jacob," Danny tried, only to get a glare. After a moment he sighed. "I guess I deserve that, given that I kept ignoring your calls and letters."
"Right. Now pull those out of their boxes and I will help you set up the security on them," Jacob said, pulling his own phone of the same model out so he could show them where things were.
Twenty minutes later both had set up passwords, screen locks, fingerprint checks, iris checks, and their voicemail. He trusted that neither of them had enough knowledge of smartphones to realize that some of that was because these had tinkertech included. He also had provided each with a nearly stealth earpiece that they paired to their phones, admitting that these were tinkertech and that Taylor would be able to pair hers to both this phone and the phone they would issue her in the Wards.
He also showed, but did not yet go to install, the car kit that would show who was calling, provide a couple of basic controls on the steering wheel, and could be used instead of the earpiece. The earpiece would, however, be more private if Danny had passengers he didn't want hearing both sides of the conversation. The installation would be a bit complicated as it would need to be attached to the radio and a couple other points, but Jacob insisted that he was up to the task.
"Next up we have the paperwork needed to join the Wards," Jacob said, pulling out a thick stack of paper and then removing the top third. Taylor was dismayed that she was handed the bottom two-thirds. "Yea, the stack I kept is for registering as an independent parahuman."
Taylor was then left to start looking through the forms while Jacob and Danny went to install the car kit. The first few were easy, basic information including her name, her father's name, their address, phone numbers (she had to double-check her new phone for its number and her father's new number), dates of birth, social security numbers, etc. A couple covered a basic description of her powers and any requirements she was aware of, though indicated that formal power testing would be required to establish official ratings.
She got to skip a dozen forms for "established" parahumans joining the Wards as she was not, according to the definition on the first of them, considered "established". She did have to fill out a form indicating that Panacea had informed her of her parahuman status and the approximate date of trigger event, though no description of the trigger event was asked for.
She set several forms aside that needed her father to fill in details or sign and moved into what was apparently the "branding" section of forms, required for those not already established with an existing cape identity. Oh, or for those that wanted or were being required to re-brand. The first couple asked about preferred names, another basic description of her power for purposes of branding (and stating that she could exclude anything she didn't want branding to know about). She filled out the correct forms based on their descriptions and, where available, included checklists. This included filling out that she had no specific costume or cape name preference. She set the pile of specific forms she didn't need aside.
She absently noticed Jacob moving away from the house with her snark sense, possibly leaving with her father to ensure that the car kit was working correctly.
Next up were a pile of combination waivers and permission forms, some required, others optional. She filled in and signed the required ones where she could, all of them going into the pile for her father to look at afterward as her signature either wasn't required or wasn't enough on all of them. She then flipped through the optional ones, which included participation in non-local Endbringer fights (local was a required one, even if only as part of crowd control in the shelters). That was actually split into "in region", "in country", and "international" categories. She didn't think that she wanted to be anywhere near the Endbringers unless they came to her, though, so put the entire stack in the "unneeded and/or used but not to be turned in" pile. No need to even show them to her father, really.
She then found the forms for "parahuman community service trips" where she could go on trips for varying lengths of time where her powers could be helpful elsewhere. She thought that might be neat, though she wasn't sure if it would happen. Like the Endbringer forms these had different categories, she filled them all out and put them in a new "to discuss" pile. The similar forms for "cross-region training trips" were filled out and added to the same pile.
She was just making it to the last group of forms when she was surprised by a beeping in her ear. It took her a minute to realize it was her new phone ringing, at which point she tapped the multipurpose button on the earpiece.
"Hello?" Taylor said, hoping she had this right.
"Hey kiddo," Danny's voice came through loud and clear. "We have the car kit working, tuned, and all that."
"That's good. This is going to take some getting used to, I think."
"That it will. Jacob noticed that we have no ice cream in the house and we are picking some up. Any flavor preference?"
"How about double chocolate chunk?"
"Alright. See you soon."
"Bye." The earpiece beeped, indicating the call had ended. Yep, that was going to be weird for a bit.
Taylor went back to the forms and found that the last bit was actually a single longer form. Reading through she found it was a non-disclosure agreement, covering all Wards and Protectorate identities that she may become or made aware of. It didn't name anyone by name, intended to be a blanket agreement. Which made sense, given the number of individual agreements that would otherwise be needed. She read through the entire thing and signed at the end, apparently with wonderful timing as Uncle Jacob's snark just appeared on the edge of her range.
She dropped the NDA into the pile for her father to look over and stood up, stretching from having sat there for so long going over the paperwork. She made an effort to pocket the phone that had been sitting on the table and wandered into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
A couple minutes later the front door opened and her father came in, followed by Uncle Jacob. They quickly put the shopping they had brought in away, and Taylor pointed her father at the pile of paperwork he had to look over. She figured she would let him decide which, if any, of the community service/cross training forms to sign.
"Before you get into that," Jacob said as Danny went to start working on the paperwork. "I have something I want to talk with the two of you about."
Taylor sat down with her glass and nodded to her uncle.
"The two of you are aware that Bonesaw is an associate of mine," Jacob continued. "If you are willing to trade civilian identities I can have her come and visit. Two of her major non-slaughterhouse activities are assisting those who have been severely injured and granting otherwise normal people enhancements. For example, she has given me a few extras." He demonstrated this by lifting their couch without any apparent effort, something that shocked both Taylor and Danny. "I think Taylor could benefit from something similar. And before you ask, these would likely be officially off the books. They need not be reported as they are not a result of Taylor's powers."
"This would increase her ability to stay safe, right?" Danny asked. It was obvious that was the metric he was using as a baseline for a lot of decisions lately.
"It would," Jacob admitted. "If only because nobody will expect her to have the boosts. Also, if her power is in fact like mine, being stronger means that she will be able to hit harder with it. Otherwise any hit with her power would be the same as if she, right now, struck someone."
"You said Bonesaw doesn't need to inflict pain for things she already knows, right?" Taylor asked.
"That is correct," Jacob answered. "In fact, when she last worked on me I came out feeling better than when I went in."
"I'm ok with it if you are," Taylor said, turning to her father. He sighed and just nodded.
"Alright, I'll give her a call," Jacob said, pulling his phone out and heading for the living room. "Hopefully she isn't too busy and can come before we want to submit the paperwork to the PRT."
"Why would it matter that we get it done before the paperwork is submitted?" Danny wondered, reaching to pick up the first form on the stack for him to review.
"Probably the form that says once you join the Wards you need to have things like that approved," Taylor said. "I think that is five or six forms down in your stack."
"That is disturbingly logical," Danny admitted after a moment of thought. Then he sighed and started reading through the form he was holding.
It turned out that Bonesaw would be able to visit in two days, but it would be the day after that the work was done. Further, this was being arranged by the PRT as a way of getting Panacea to look at some things that Bonesaw could do, so there would be no questions of why Bonesaw was here.
Which brought up that, amazingly enough, Panacea was the only cape other than Taylor that lived in Brockton Bay and was aware of the truth of the Slaughterhouse Nine. In fact, until Taylor and Danny were informed no other person of any description living in Brockton Bay was officially in the know. Technically, by the NDAs, Panacea was still the only one officially in the know, actually.
The fact that Taylor would be serving as a "parahuman volunteer already read into the true purpose of the Slaughterhouse Nine" and not actually named was Jacob's method of min-maxing loopholes. Jacob had been careful to ensure that no mention of the individual being officially informed and having a signed NDA on file was included because neither Taylor or Danny met those criteria. Due to the wording of Jacob's contracts that didn't matter for the purposes of the visit, though. As such, anyone who found the paperwork and went looking for who Bonesaw had "improved" would be looking in the wrong places. They hoped, anyway.
Jacob was annoyed that he had failed to get Danny listed as a "non-parahuman volunteer already read into the true purpose of the Slaughterhouse Nine" though. Apparently those authorizing the trip only cared about what Bonesaw could do to a parahuman this time around.
Starting the process of joining the Wards would happen a little over a week later, if you didn't count some of the "get it out of the way" stuff they were going to do in advance. Such as taking advantage of Panacea's presence to have her run Taylor through a PRT-approved physical.
Most of this was relayed over dinner, where Taylor was instructed to eat as much as she could until after the procedure at a minimum.
After dessert Jacob showed Taylor how she could use her cell phone as an internet connection for her aging desktop computer, something he said she probably shouldn't mention to her father. She took advantage of this almost immediately, checking the local news first to read up on what was going on with Winslow. Which turned out to be pretty much what Jacob had already told them. She then decided that, as a parahuman, she should be keeping up on the goings-on at PHO.
It had nothing to do with anything else, really. Probably. Yea, nobody is believing that excuse. She is still sticking with that story.
Some quick checks and she found that the only thing of interest in Brockton Bay since she had last visited the site was Winslow's closing. There were a lot of insane theories, including parahuman involvement in placing the asbestos (which was apparently known to be there, just not known to be exposed, throwing that theory out) and that a parahuman had been responsible for the sinkhole. Oddly nobody was blaming a parahuman for the supposed 'biohazard spill'.
No, wait, that apparently had a dedicated thread. Nevermind.
She spent another hour poking around online before deciding she should get ready for bed. She almost forgot to remove the earpiece, but seeing the little charging cradle for it next to the one for her new phone was enough of a reminder.
Just to be certain she had the information in them down she re-read the pamphlets that were still sitting on the table. Some of the unwritten rules were interesting and apparently a number of groups had compromised on the pamphlet as villain perspectives were included.
For example, killing was generally something nobody was supposed to do. This obviously went out the window entirely if a kill-order was issued on someone, but that was usually only done for those that were already running around killing. Beyond that, though, there was actually a small list of conditions for villains to reference wherein killing someone would not get the heroes on them for it. Things such as those who had repeated escapes from confinement where people had died during the escapes or certain kinds of human masters who were attempting to control or actively controlling the villain or those close to them.
More relevant to her were the specifics regarding identities and those with powers that could connect civilian and cape identities. The PRT and Protectorate apparently had internal rules that prohibited even asking such capes to identify other capes unless a kill order had been issued. Most larger villain groups apparently, at least publically, had similar policies. Human masters like Heartbreaker were one of the few overall exceptions, assuming they were still unknown, as they usually avoided having a cape identity until they were discovered. In that case, though, even the villain groups apparently recommended informing the PRT through channels dedicated for that kind of thing (one of the few sets of contact information actually listed) so that they could investigate, just in case.
Taylor supposed that even villains have standards. Though in this case it could also be pragmatic, nobody wants to fall under that kind of control themselves.
In addition, capes like her that could identify what powers other capes had were encouraged, even when working with the PRT or Protectorate, to keep most of those details between themselves and the cape in question, sticking to observed abilities only. At least for allies and neutrals. Everyone, probably rightfully, assumed that the enemy having such an ability meant that everything you could do was known to whatever group such a cape was a member of after you encountered them. But, and this was the important part, even the villains generally agreed that revealing information gained on someone else's powers only counted as acceptable if the cape being reported on had been in costume or actively using their powers. Getting a read on them while they were in civvies and, say, picking up groceries was considered a bad thing and should never be reported. Apparently whether or not you were in civvies didn't matter, though, only the status of the cape your power was informing you about mattered.
The final exception that stuck out to her, though, was identifying capes in civvies that were working with your group in a non-cape capacity. Sometimes that was merely identifying someone who did not know they had triggered, other times it was identifying someone who was infiltrating. At that point you reported them either to someone higher on the chain than you (ideally as high as you could reasonably get to given your own position in the organization) or, in the case of groups like the PRT and Protectorate, to dedicated contact points. The latter because you never knew when the cape was known to the higher-ups but not to the locals for some reason.
Huh, Uncle Jacob probably fell into that last group, now that she thought about it.
Taylor did wonder where you found the dedicated contact numbers, and a dozen others referred to elsewhere in the unwritten rules pamphlet. Presumably you got a list at some point if you joined up with the PRT or Protectorate, but given their likely rarity in being used where would you keep them safe? Having to go looking could very well tip someone off that you had noticed something they didn't want you to.
Taylor hopped up and grabbed some loose paper and a pencil to take some notes with. Questions like that would eventually bug her, better to write them down and ask. If she wasn't allowed to know Uncle Jacob would likely just tell her that.
After making note of her question she then thought about what they were likely going to need to discuss. She suspected that her father would want her to join the Wards for protection, but Uncle Jacob likely had a better overview of pros and cons there. She made a quick note about that, too. She was still fairly certain that she wouldn't be joining New Wave, though, if only to help protect her father. That and it would be even more of an issue if people made any connection between her powers and Uncle Jacob's.
It was about then that Uncle Jacob wandered downstairs. "Mornin Taylor."
"Good morning Uncle Jacob," Taylor responded. Huh, his snark appeared to still be sleeping. She didn't know they slept at all. "Did you hear if dad was moving yet?"
"I woke him up, actually." He looked at the lack of dishes to be washed. "And I guess I won't tell him that you dealt with the dishes." He then moved to make some tea.
Dang, caught. Oh well, nothing they could do about it. "Not like the dishes were difficult. Or strenuous. Or really any trouble."
"Yea yea, you're not disabled, just don't expect your father to agree." While waiting for water to heat up he checked the fridge. "Want any eggs? Oooh, bacon, that sounds good too."
"Yes please to both," Taylor answered. She might be pushing it after the cereal, but eggs and bacon? Hell yea. "Maybe you can make bacon omelets?"
"Hmm, good idea."
Taylor watched as breakfast, or second breakfast for her, was prepared. Her father wandered in, mumbled something about the dishes to Uncle Jacob, and sat down with the tea Uncle Jacob handed him. He might have preferred coffee, depending on his mood if asked, but the tea was already prepared.
After everyone had eaten their fill the dishes were put aside and Uncle Jacob went and fetched some stuff from the trunk of his rental car. Once again they collected around the table, probably to go over more cape-related things now that they had all had time to digest what they talked about the night before.
Oh, look, Uncle Jacob's snark woke up. Still wasn't being talkative, though. Uncle Jacob was probably trying to keep it from revealing too much by accident.
"So," Jacob started, looking at Taylor. "I can't help be curious, why 'snark'?"
"My snark told me that they metaphorically came from an island across a vast ocean," Taylor answered. "You can't find or capture them through anything resembling normal means and there isn't a true description of most of them."
Jacob and Danny looked at each other, then back at Taylor.
"What?" Taylor asked.
"Your power is a fan of Lewis Carroll?" Danny asked. "How is it a fan of Lewis Carroll?"
"Honestly I think it picked that to troll people," Taylor admitted. "Then used the metaphor as an excuse. But I am ok with that too, honestly."
"That makes a disturbing amount of sense," Jacob said. "Right, now that we have covered that I think we need to go over what options Taylor has going forward. Do either of you have any questions before we start on that?"
"I have one," Taylor said, poking her notes. "How do people in the PRT and Protectorate get and keep track of all the special reporting things the unwritten rules pamphlet mentions?"
"They are pre-programmed into the phones they are issued," Jacob answered. "And regularly updated with changes, actually."
"That should have occurred to me," Taylor said, crossing out the first entry on her notes. "I think the rest of what I have here will come up anyway."
"You have anything Danny?" Jacob asked, turning to Danny.
"Honestly the reporting contacts was bugging me too," Danny admitted. "Just hadn't thought to just ask you. Nothing else I don't think we are going to cover anyway."
"Alrighty then," Jacob said. "Options for Taylor going forward with parahuman abilities. Option one is to do nothing and attempt to go on as though you don't have parahuman abilities. Upsides include that you don't turn your life upside-down. Downsides include that you are almost guaranteed to snap at some point because you aren't getting any use of your powers in."
"That sounds like an undesirable downside," Danny admitted. "Though the dealing with trigger events pamphlet did basically say the same thing."
"Yea, it is a well-documented side effect of having powers," Jacob said. "Option two is to try and operate as an independent parahuman. Success at this will vary with powers, personality, and the local cape climate. Upsides include not being beholden to anyone else. Downsides include likely attempts at forced recruitment from gangs that find your abilities potentially useful and an increased chance of death if your powers drive you to actually fight, which most that have any form of offensive use do."
"That sounds just as unpleasant as the first one," Danny admitted. "Though that brings up a new question. Taylor, what do you know of your powers?"
"Huh," Jacob said. "I can't believe I forgot to ask about that. I guess I thought we already knew?"
"Well my snark says I have a couple of different abilities," Taylor said. "I can communicate with other snarks, obviously. That has side effects of being able to spot other parahumans and apparently while I have been doing things with line of sight I actually have about a four hundred meter range in which I can locate and communicate with snarks?"
"Your power measures in meters?" Danny interrupted. "Why meters?"
"Because it finds imperial units confusing," Taylor replied without any hesitation. Danny and Jacob just nodded, figuring that was as good as they were getting there. "Apparently I should be able to communicate with and somewhat coordinate between all snarks in my range at once without getting confused as well, provided my snark has enough bandwidth available for them all. Also assuming I am not in line of sight mode as well."
"I assume that the coordination would depend on the parahumans cooperating," Jacob said, giving it some thought. "Could still be quite useful if they are willing to act on prods from their powers. Could be useless if they aren't."
"True, that part would be situational, but I suspect a lot of things go that route," Taylor said. "I can also pull what amounts to your trick with blades and other edged weapons, just with blunt objects instead of edged. My snark also says that, like you, Hatchet Face would disable that bit but not my ability to communicate with other snarks. Apparently the communication bits are harder to turn off in general in snarks?"
"That is potentially a very useful piece of general information about powers," Jacob said, making note of it. "In fact, if it passes the PRT thinker checks it may be worth one of the cape information bounty payouts."
"The what?" Danny asked, beating Taylor by virtue of having just taken a breath.
"Oh, right," Jacob said. "That isn't well known, but the PRT pays out money for general information about the background behind how powers work and interact with each other. In this case it is information, likely not able to be acted upon, but probably useful for larger modeling of powers. Thus probably worth a few thousand dollars."
Taylor and Danny sat back for a moment. A seemingly innocent comment about the workings of powers worth a few thousand dollars?
"Right, so then," Jacob said after it was clear the other two were a bit stunned. "Taylor, anything else about your powers you haven't mentioned?"
"Er," Taylor said, blinking. "Not much? Apparently I can direct extra communication bandwidth at specific snarks if I want instead of just the single connection. Not sure what that means beyond having more bandwidth to communicate with, though. That's about it."
"Any specific needs for violence?" Jacob prodded. "Special requirements it wants you to fulfill? Other oddities that could cause problems?"
Taylor thought for a couple of minutes, or rather communicated with her own snark. Finally she spoke up. "I think I will have issues if I don't have snarks around often enough, but I don't have to hunt down new ones or anything. I need to occasionally hit things with the blunt object bit, but it doesn't need to be a living thing often and never needs to cause even minor injuries or damage. Beyond that my snark wants to troll other snarks, or maybe others with snarks? Though that is more of a hobby than a need. Or at least that is the impression I am getting."
"Er, right," Jacob said, blinking. "Usually that kind of thing would come out over a couple weeks of testing and you just asked. Can do you do that for others?"
"Only if their snarks are willing to tell me," Taylor answered.
"Right, right," Jacob said, making some quick notes. "Well, none of that would cause issues with joining the Wards, which I suppose is option 3. We did only bring up two options so far, right?"
"Wards is the third one," Danny agreed. "Upsides and downsides?"
"Upsides include a support structure, assistance with branding, and a decent trust fund," Jacob said. "Downsides include a command structure, assistance with branding, and in some cases annoying restrictions on use of your power."
"Er, why is assistance with branding in both lists?" Taylor asked. "I would think that would only be an upside, really?"
"They tend to have a very narrow view of acceptable," Jacob supplied. "The horror stories some capes have can be quite amusing from the outside."
"Right," Danny said, not quite believing him. Then again, Jacob should have more experience there and clashing opinions were a fact of life with him. "I assume there are more than three options for Taylor."
"Of course," Jacob continued. "She could petition to join The Guild, with most of the same upsides and downsides of joining the Wards. Though with the added downside of likely needing to move."
"Let's not go that route," Danny said. "If anything else, I would find it hard to hire people for the dockworkers here if I lived elsewhere."
"She could also petition to join New Wave," Jacob said. "Smaller support and command structures, more strict branding, no trust fund, and you have to go public with your identity."
"Not happening," Taylor said. "If only because that would paint a bigger potential target on dad's back."
"Moving on then," Jacob said as Danny gave Taylor a somewhat sad smile. "Taylor could also willingly join one of the more villainous organizations. Upsides would include a support structure, downsides include regularly assisting in illegal activities and being much more likely to be injured or killed."
"Not happening," Danny echoed Taylor's comment. "Especially as last I knew she wasn't a druggie, racist, or asian."
"I have been known to poke at video games though," Taylor said, causing Danny and Jacob to look at her. She stared back at the two of them. "What, I'm not allowed to joke now?"
"Yea, right, ok," Jacob said, shaking his head. "I think that covers the remotely realistic options, as Faultline generally only recruits minors that are both Case 53s and have no family, or so I have been led to believe. I am not going to let you decide on anything right now, though."
"Not that I am going to argue, but why not?" Danny asked, looking a little confused.
"Because I have other things that need doing," Jacob said. "Plus any option that ends up with power testing would be strenuous, and thus not implementable right away anyway. That and while I am out dealing with things the two of you should talk things through without me."
Uncle Jacob had, as he said, left to take care of who knows what. Snark detection in "area" mode apparently let Taylor know exactly where a snark-bearer was in relation to her, which would probably use useful, and let her monitor his progress for a couple of blocks as he drove away.
Still, unless she started going out in costume she should probably stay in line of sight mode. Maybe? If any capes were sent after her it would be a good idea to know in advance.
She made a quick note on her list to discuss that conundrum with others.
Her father had suggested they move into the living room and the more comfortable seating there, and she had agreed. She had grabbed a soda for herself from the fridge on her way by while her father called into work to check up on things. Apparently upon finding out that she had been hospitalized he had been told, in no uncertain terms, to take the rest of the week off. He still wanted to make sure everything was ok, though.
Finally he wandered in and collapsed into his preferred chair. "So Taylor, given that all of this will have the most direct effect on you, what do you think about the various options?"
"Obviously I don't intend on joining any of the gangs," Taylor said, finding it hard to imagine being a member of any of the big three in the bay. "Though if they were more about showing off and less into crime then joining up with Über and Leet could have been interesting."
"Not sure how well your powers would mesh with that kind of thing."
"True, still could have been fun to try. New Wave is out because I don't want to paint a target on you, as I said. Pretending to not have powers is probably out as well, if anything else I suspect that I will need more than incidental contact with other parahumans. Which generally leaves being an independent or joining the Wards."
"That sounds about right. What are your thoughts on those?"
"Well, if I go independent then I have no real parahuman support structure, would have to actively look for other parahumans to satisfy my snark, and as a consequence would likely end up in a lot of dangerous situations or, in effect, doing my best to hang out with the Wards. The Wards would give me the support structure and I would automatically be around them fairly often, likely beyond what I could accomplish on my own."
"Not to mention you could meet Armsmaster and Miss Militia, amongst others."
"Trying not to let my inner fangirl influence the decision."
"Right, right."
"You just want me to join the Wards, don't you?"
"Mostly because I think it is the safest option for you right now."
"Well, there we have it. I was leaning that way, you are leaning that way. Why are we discussing it again?"
"To make sure we are on the same page and understand each other?"
"Well, since that is out of the way, I might want to come up with a cape name. Any ideas?"
They would spend a couple of hours discussing possible names from the mundane to the ridiculous and a number in-between. They came up with nothing they were happy with, or thought that the PRT would be happy with, but it helped pass the time.
Uncle Jacob had called and said he would be bringing a slightly late lunch. True to that he showed up with a bag full of subs and chips, a six-pack of soda bottles, and a box he said was for after lunch.
Over lunch they discussed little things of no real consequence to cape dealings. Apparently the news, which Taylor and Danny had not been watching but that Jacob had listened to in the car, was reporting that Winslow may never reopen and that students likely needed to be moved to other schools in the meantime. Apparently the attempt to clean up the 'biohazard spill' had revealed exposed asbestos behind the lockers, which led to a revelation that the building's foundation was damaged due to a minor sinkhole under it.
After lunch the box was placed on the table, and Uncle Jacob paused before opening. "First up, did you two come to a decision regarding what to do going forward?"
"We think I should join the Wards," Taylor answered. "If nothing else that will ensure I don't have issues with having to go hunting for parahumans to be around."
"Good, good," Jacob said. He then opened the box and pulled out two smaller boxes, handing one to each of the other two. "After some discussion with Danny I took the liberty of purchasing a cell phone for each of you. These in particular are now paired and can be used to locate each other, as well as provide information on the last twenty-four hours of location data. Note that if either phone is used for that purpose an alert will come up on the other, offering the option of denying permission, and it will take half an hour for permission to be automatically granted. The PRT, Protectorate, and police all have codes that can be entered that will bypass that time period."
"These look a bit more expensive than I was thinking," Danny said, looking at the box with a 'D' on it. Taylor's had a 'T'. "I am not sure how long it will take me to pay you back."
"You won't be," Jacob said. "These are a gift, from me. The service on them has been pre-paid for the next five years." That was a lie, technically they were being paid monthly from his PRT account. He wasn't telling them that, though. "I ensured that they have a number of contacts entered ahead of time, including the landline here and the other cell phone, plus my cell phone. I also have an easily installed car kit ready to install in your car, Danny, and we can work on installing that in a bit."
"Jacob," Danny tried, only to get a glare. After a moment he sighed. "I guess I deserve that, given that I kept ignoring your calls and letters."
"Right. Now pull those out of their boxes and I will help you set up the security on them," Jacob said, pulling his own phone of the same model out so he could show them where things were.
Twenty minutes later both had set up passwords, screen locks, fingerprint checks, iris checks, and their voicemail. He trusted that neither of them had enough knowledge of smartphones to realize that some of that was because these had tinkertech included. He also had provided each with a nearly stealth earpiece that they paired to their phones, admitting that these were tinkertech and that Taylor would be able to pair hers to both this phone and the phone they would issue her in the Wards.
He also showed, but did not yet go to install, the car kit that would show who was calling, provide a couple of basic controls on the steering wheel, and could be used instead of the earpiece. The earpiece would, however, be more private if Danny had passengers he didn't want hearing both sides of the conversation. The installation would be a bit complicated as it would need to be attached to the radio and a couple other points, but Jacob insisted that he was up to the task.
"Next up we have the paperwork needed to join the Wards," Jacob said, pulling out a thick stack of paper and then removing the top third. Taylor was dismayed that she was handed the bottom two-thirds. "Yea, the stack I kept is for registering as an independent parahuman."
Taylor was then left to start looking through the forms while Jacob and Danny went to install the car kit. The first few were easy, basic information including her name, her father's name, their address, phone numbers (she had to double-check her new phone for its number and her father's new number), dates of birth, social security numbers, etc. A couple covered a basic description of her powers and any requirements she was aware of, though indicated that formal power testing would be required to establish official ratings.
She got to skip a dozen forms for "established" parahumans joining the Wards as she was not, according to the definition on the first of them, considered "established". She did have to fill out a form indicating that Panacea had informed her of her parahuman status and the approximate date of trigger event, though no description of the trigger event was asked for.
She set several forms aside that needed her father to fill in details or sign and moved into what was apparently the "branding" section of forms, required for those not already established with an existing cape identity. Oh, or for those that wanted or were being required to re-brand. The first couple asked about preferred names, another basic description of her power for purposes of branding (and stating that she could exclude anything she didn't want branding to know about). She filled out the correct forms based on their descriptions and, where available, included checklists. This included filling out that she had no specific costume or cape name preference. She set the pile of specific forms she didn't need aside.
She absently noticed Jacob moving away from the house with her snark sense, possibly leaving with her father to ensure that the car kit was working correctly.
Next up were a pile of combination waivers and permission forms, some required, others optional. She filled in and signed the required ones where she could, all of them going into the pile for her father to look at afterward as her signature either wasn't required or wasn't enough on all of them. She then flipped through the optional ones, which included participation in non-local Endbringer fights (local was a required one, even if only as part of crowd control in the shelters). That was actually split into "in region", "in country", and "international" categories. She didn't think that she wanted to be anywhere near the Endbringers unless they came to her, though, so put the entire stack in the "unneeded and/or used but not to be turned in" pile. No need to even show them to her father, really.
She then found the forms for "parahuman community service trips" where she could go on trips for varying lengths of time where her powers could be helpful elsewhere. She thought that might be neat, though she wasn't sure if it would happen. Like the Endbringer forms these had different categories, she filled them all out and put them in a new "to discuss" pile. The similar forms for "cross-region training trips" were filled out and added to the same pile.
She was just making it to the last group of forms when she was surprised by a beeping in her ear. It took her a minute to realize it was her new phone ringing, at which point she tapped the multipurpose button on the earpiece.
"Hello?" Taylor said, hoping she had this right.
"Hey kiddo," Danny's voice came through loud and clear. "We have the car kit working, tuned, and all that."
"That's good. This is going to take some getting used to, I think."
"That it will. Jacob noticed that we have no ice cream in the house and we are picking some up. Any flavor preference?"
"How about double chocolate chunk?"
"Alright. See you soon."
"Bye." The earpiece beeped, indicating the call had ended. Yep, that was going to be weird for a bit.
Taylor went back to the forms and found that the last bit was actually a single longer form. Reading through she found it was a non-disclosure agreement, covering all Wards and Protectorate identities that she may become or made aware of. It didn't name anyone by name, intended to be a blanket agreement. Which made sense, given the number of individual agreements that would otherwise be needed. She read through the entire thing and signed at the end, apparently with wonderful timing as Uncle Jacob's snark just appeared on the edge of her range.
She dropped the NDA into the pile for her father to look over and stood up, stretching from having sat there for so long going over the paperwork. She made an effort to pocket the phone that had been sitting on the table and wandered into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
A couple minutes later the front door opened and her father came in, followed by Uncle Jacob. They quickly put the shopping they had brought in away, and Taylor pointed her father at the pile of paperwork he had to look over. She figured she would let him decide which, if any, of the community service/cross training forms to sign.
"Before you get into that," Jacob said as Danny went to start working on the paperwork. "I have something I want to talk with the two of you about."
Taylor sat down with her glass and nodded to her uncle.
"The two of you are aware that Bonesaw is an associate of mine," Jacob continued. "If you are willing to trade civilian identities I can have her come and visit. Two of her major non-slaughterhouse activities are assisting those who have been severely injured and granting otherwise normal people enhancements. For example, she has given me a few extras." He demonstrated this by lifting their couch without any apparent effort, something that shocked both Taylor and Danny. "I think Taylor could benefit from something similar. And before you ask, these would likely be officially off the books. They need not be reported as they are not a result of Taylor's powers."
"This would increase her ability to stay safe, right?" Danny asked. It was obvious that was the metric he was using as a baseline for a lot of decisions lately.
"It would," Jacob admitted. "If only because nobody will expect her to have the boosts. Also, if her power is in fact like mine, being stronger means that she will be able to hit harder with it. Otherwise any hit with her power would be the same as if she, right now, struck someone."
"You said Bonesaw doesn't need to inflict pain for things she already knows, right?" Taylor asked.
"That is correct," Jacob answered. "In fact, when she last worked on me I came out feeling better than when I went in."
"I'm ok with it if you are," Taylor said, turning to her father. He sighed and just nodded.
"Alright, I'll give her a call," Jacob said, pulling his phone out and heading for the living room. "Hopefully she isn't too busy and can come before we want to submit the paperwork to the PRT."
"Why would it matter that we get it done before the paperwork is submitted?" Danny wondered, reaching to pick up the first form on the stack for him to review.
"Probably the form that says once you join the Wards you need to have things like that approved," Taylor said. "I think that is five or six forms down in your stack."
"That is disturbingly logical," Danny admitted after a moment of thought. Then he sighed and started reading through the form he was holding.
It turned out that Bonesaw would be able to visit in two days, but it would be the day after that the work was done. Further, this was being arranged by the PRT as a way of getting Panacea to look at some things that Bonesaw could do, so there would be no questions of why Bonesaw was here.
Which brought up that, amazingly enough, Panacea was the only cape other than Taylor that lived in Brockton Bay and was aware of the truth of the Slaughterhouse Nine. In fact, until Taylor and Danny were informed no other person of any description living in Brockton Bay was officially in the know. Technically, by the NDAs, Panacea was still the only one officially in the know, actually.
The fact that Taylor would be serving as a "parahuman volunteer already read into the true purpose of the Slaughterhouse Nine" and not actually named was Jacob's method of min-maxing loopholes. Jacob had been careful to ensure that no mention of the individual being officially informed and having a signed NDA on file was included because neither Taylor or Danny met those criteria. Due to the wording of Jacob's contracts that didn't matter for the purposes of the visit, though. As such, anyone who found the paperwork and went looking for who Bonesaw had "improved" would be looking in the wrong places. They hoped, anyway.
Jacob was annoyed that he had failed to get Danny listed as a "non-parahuman volunteer already read into the true purpose of the Slaughterhouse Nine" though. Apparently those authorizing the trip only cared about what Bonesaw could do to a parahuman this time around.
Starting the process of joining the Wards would happen a little over a week later, if you didn't count some of the "get it out of the way" stuff they were going to do in advance. Such as taking advantage of Panacea's presence to have her run Taylor through a PRT-approved physical.
Most of this was relayed over dinner, where Taylor was instructed to eat as much as she could until after the procedure at a minimum.
After dessert Jacob showed Taylor how she could use her cell phone as an internet connection for her aging desktop computer, something he said she probably shouldn't mention to her father. She took advantage of this almost immediately, checking the local news first to read up on what was going on with Winslow. Which turned out to be pretty much what Jacob had already told them. She then decided that, as a parahuman, she should be keeping up on the goings-on at PHO.
It had nothing to do with anything else, really. Probably. Yea, nobody is believing that excuse. She is still sticking with that story.
Some quick checks and she found that the only thing of interest in Brockton Bay since she had last visited the site was Winslow's closing. There were a lot of insane theories, including parahuman involvement in placing the asbestos (which was apparently known to be there, just not known to be exposed, throwing that theory out) and that a parahuman had been responsible for the sinkhole. Oddly nobody was blaming a parahuman for the supposed 'biohazard spill'.
No, wait, that apparently had a dedicated thread. Nevermind.
She spent another hour poking around online before deciding she should get ready for bed. She almost forgot to remove the earpiece, but seeing the little charging cradle for it next to the one for her new phone was enough of a reminder.
Chapter 3
Taylor woke up and, after a few minutes, realized that it was Thursday. Huh. She hadn't really been thinking in terms of days of the week. Then again, she hadn't actually made it to classes back on Monday, in fact barely remembered Monday. It was probably only the fact that the hospital didn't keep Panacea's patients for observation unless Panacea recommended it that had allowed her to sleep in her own bed Tuesday night.
Maybe she should try and get Panacea a gift? Then again, she normally doesn't accept money and stuff for healing. Hmmm. She'd have to think on it. Or maybe ask her on Saturday. Perhaps see if she had thought any more about the greenhouse.
Taylor took advantage of her new phone's data connection and checked the news and weather while still in bed. Looked like a nice, if somewhat chilly, day today. She avoided PHO, figuring it was probably a time-sink she didn't need before breakfast, and eventually got up and dressed. Then, to get into the habit of doing so, she popped the earpiece in, clipped the phone to her pants, and wandered downstairs.
She found her father making breakfast, apparently having gotten up before her today. Or maybe she had spent longer playing with her phone than she thought. His phone was noticeably absent, though. Then again, he hadn't gotten dressed for the day yet. She watched as he prepared pancakes and breakfast sausages, wishing they had some blueberries for the pancakes.
Taylor realized that Uncle Jacob wasn't in the house when he suddenly entered her range, startling her. She hadn't realized she was in area-mode, having assumed she was in line of sight mode when she hadn't sensed Uncle Jacob's snark upon waking. Hmm, she did need to talk about which mode she should normally be in. Today was probably as good a day as any to bring it up.
"Morning Taylor," Jacob said as he came in, before he looked over at Danny. "Huh, you already started cooking."
"Yep," Danny answered, finishing up a stack of pancakes. He popped a couple of sausages on the side and placed the plate in front of Taylor. "Where were you so early?"
"I found the lack of orange juice disturbing when I noticed it this morning," Jacob said. "So I sought to rectify it."
"Don't suppose you discovered that the nearest grocers doesn't sell orange juice," Danny asked, grinning as he poured out the next set of pancakes.
"The nearest doesn't sell it, the next nearest was sold out and won't have any until Tuesday, and the third nearest won't open for another twenty minutes," Jacob replied. "As you can probably tell by the fact I brought no orange juice back with me, I gave up for now. I will, however, find some later and it will make it into your fridge. Then, and only then, will I be happy!"
Taylor quietly snickered as she got up, grabbing a glass on her way to the fridge. She removed a greenish plastic pitcher from the door of the fridge, shook it a little, then twisted the lid to open the spout and poured herself a glass of orange juice from it. She then closed the spout, put the pitcher back into the fridge, and brought her glass of orange juice back to the table before taking a sip and returning to eating her pancakes.
"Or I can feel like a fool, apparently," Jacob finally said, having watched all of that. "Why is your orange juice in a pitcher?"
"Because I have a habit of opening the cartons wrong while half asleep," Danny replied. "I have no problem with the pitcher, but can never remember there is a spout on the cartons. Then they don't close properly, so we dump it in the pitcher."
"At this point I just fill the pitcher first chance I get after the carton is opened," Taylor added. "Less hassle that way. Unless we actually find it in a proper bottle, he has no problem then."
"Stupid pitcher, stupid grocer," Jacob mumbled just barely loud enough for the other two to hear and snicker about as he got himself a glass of orange juice. By the time he was done mumbling he also had a plate in front of him, so he began eating.
After everyone had eaten their fill, Danny had gotten ready for the day, and the extra pancakes were packed away in the freezer for another day, the three sat there in the kitchen with a drink each.
"I don't believe we have anything planned for today," Danny finally said. "I was instructed that if I called the office before showing up Monday morning that they would force me to take another week off, so I haven't even informed them of the new phone number."
"According to the news Winslow is still closed and they haven't even started figuring out what to do about moving everyone around," Taylor added. "Though that makes me wonder if I can try and get into Arcadia."
"You likely will get some help with that once you join the Wards," Jacob admitted. "Not that it will be hard for them to 'sneak' you in amongst whomever else ends up there. You will likely be annoyed with the placement tests, though."
"Possibly," Taylor said. "I kind of want to get out of the house, but need to discuss something first."
Jacob and Danny looked at each other, wondering what would need to be discussed before getting out of the house. Beyond maybe not hovering constantly?
Taylor waited for them to finish their attempt at non-verbal communication, then continued. "So, my snark sense has the two modes. I don't know if it would be better to normally be in line of sight mode, and thus only seeing snarks that are in front of me, or to normally be in area mode, and thus know the location of every parahuman in my range. And before either of you ask, I checked, no off switch."
"That is an interesting problem," Jacob admitted after a couple of minutes. "I don't have two modes to my sense, so it hasn't come up with me. Would I be correct in assuming that line of sight is going to be much more of a 'look, a parahuman!' reaction mentally as you spot them?"
"That seems to be the case, yea," Taylor said. "In area mode they just kinda appear on my senses. Then again, that could be just that I have gotten familiar with your snark."
"That could invalidate things, hmmm," Jacob said, thinking. "I suspect that, for now, being aware of parahumans nearby is the best bet. Line of sight might be less overwhelming if you are around enough parahumans, but I doubt that is going to come up often."
"With that somewhat decided for now," Danny said, looking at Taylor. "Do you have any preference for where you would like to go out of the house?"
"I don't suppose we can find me a nice blunt self defense weapon?" Taylor asked, hunching down a little. "I kinda have an urge to hit something, if you know what I mean."
"Right, powers want to be used," Jacob mumbled, then spoke up as he continued. "How have you lasted this long without using that part of your power?"
"Mainly a desire not to accidentally hurt either of you or cause damage in the house," Taylor admitted. "Getting a bit more difficult to push to the side as time goes on, though."
"Come on kiddo," Danny said, getting up. "Let's go see about buying you something to hit things with. We will have to think about where to go so you can actually do so, though."
The three of them ended up visiting the boardwalk, Taylor finally seeing the car kit for Danny's phone in the process. They noticed an unusually large number of teenagers about for a weekday morning, but with an entire high school closed that wasn't really a surprise. Danny led them down a side street to a slightly out of the way used equipment shop that he claimed the dock workers frequented.
Inside Taylor and Jacob looked around and the various items. They found that there was a mixture of survival gear, training and self defense equipment, and used books. Jacob drifted towards some of the knives while Taylor wandered over towards a collection of clubs and batons, coupled with the occasional baseball bat. She found a decent-looking collapsible baton that felt nice in her hand after she figured out how to get it open and closed. She couldn't find a brand, but it was labeled "Tac-Smack".
Danny had gone to find the owner, given that nobody appeared to be manning the counter. He wandered back, the owner trailing behind him, apparently catching up from who knows when. Danny gave Taylor a look, seeing her holding a single item, and gestured that she should grab another or two. So Taylor looked over some of the other items, finding a decent wooden baseball bat that she liked the feel of. As she carried both over towards the counter a display of folding shovels got her attention as well. No, wait, they were labeled as being 'entrenching tools'. She supposed her power wouldn't work on them if swung edge-on, but grabbed one anyway.
Jacob wandered over with a single small hunting knife, saw the entrenching tool Taylor had grabbed, and after some thought decided to grab one of his own. He would have the opposite issue, needing to swing edge-on, but the basic tool should work for both of their powers. Though now that the thought about it, she wasn't sure how they would explain their selections if asked.
"Decent choice on the shovels," the owner said, looking over their selections. "Many find them good for camping, and that is the sturdier model. Not my preference on the knife, but everyone's different there. Though why does the little lady need a bat and baton?"
"Bat's easier to have ready to grab in a pinch at home," Danny answered before Taylor had thought of anything. "But the baton is easier to keep in a bag. She had some trouble recently, you see. Thank goodness Panacea was able to help her, but having something to at hand, if only for the confidence boost, is the main reason we swung by today."
That was a nicely prepared reason. Taylor wondered if a visit like this was considered even before the revelation about her triggering?
"Well, those should serve you well," the owner said, ringing everything up. Jacob had his card handed over before Danny even had his wallet out, and got a glare for it, but no argument. Taylor was given a quick lesson on properly using the collapsible baton, then they took their purchases and left.
The three of them ended up visiting a park in the docks area. It was run-down, in part because there were no residences in use or businesses open in the area anymore. Some careful checking indicated that they should be unobserved, and Taylor gleefully went at hitting the broken beyond repair swingset with her power channeled through first the bat, then the collapsible baton, and finally the shovel. She wasn't strong enough to cause much damage to the thing, though she was getting a good rattling thunk with each swing.
Jacob was a bit more discreet testing the hunting knife with his power, finding it acceptable as he cut some weeds. The shovel surprised him, though. He thought he might have to sharpen it up a bit, but the thing seemed useful and fairly easy to carry. Without sharpening it might even serve as a less lethal "edged" weapon that still had some mass behind it.
Danny sat there, half watching and half trying to figure out some of the features on his phone. Better to know how to use things and never need them than the other way around, right?
Eventually Taylor had worked out her need to hit things and they packed up and left, returning to the boardwalk for lunch. Which Jacob paid for again before Danny even thought about doing so, by virtue of collecting everyone's orders and then leaving them at a table while he played fetch. Taylor was finding it interesting that she had not noticed any snarks other than her Uncle's, a trend that continued as wandered through various shops after lunch.
"Oooh, look," Taylor said as they poked around a toy store. "Nerf bats."
"Do you actually want Nerf bats?" Danny asked, looking at Taylor. "Why?"
"They are blunt and generally safe to whack things with," Taylor returned, dropping all the hints needed. "And look, they come in several sizes!"
They ended up leaving with four different foam bats, and Danny finally got to pay for something. The smallest was a foot long and all foam except for a plastic handle, allowing it to be compressed down quite a bit. The other three all had a solid plastic core that was wrapped in foam, meaning that they could hit harder than they looked at first glance, and topped out at three feet long. All of them were advertised as using a tinker-derived foam that was guaranteed to last years even if you subjected it to insane abuse for a foam toy.
Which meant that you were still out of luck if you, say, swung one at Lung.
By the time they made it back to the car Taylor had whacked both adults multiple times with the smallest foam bat, directly and indirectly. Just because she could. Neither complained, because they were enjoying her good mood too much.
Once they got home Taylor had dug around and found a sling bag in the attic that she could stick the cell phone, collapsible baton, and compressed foam bat into individual pockets of with room left over for a water bottle and a couple other miscellaneous items. It even had a couple of loops that she could, if desired, re-purpose with minimal effort to hold her "entrenching tool" to the outside of it. That was, admittedly, probably going a bit far for carrying around all the time. Perhaps she would see about carrying that in-costume? Once she had a costume, anyway.
By the time she had finished it was time for dinner. Uncle Jacob had thrown a frozen lasagna in the oven, which while not as good as homemade still ended up fully devoured. Then, because they had little better to do they actually sat down and watched the news together.
"Tonight's top story is the supposed biohazard spill at Winslow High School," the anchorman started at the top of the hour. "Most of our information on this horrible situation had been through observation of actions being taken, official sources being oddly silent on what was actually going on. That silence ended earlier today when it was announced that three individuals responsible for the 'spill' had been taken into custody and had already entered into plea agreements."
Taylor had frozen, her uncle carefully wrapping her in a one-armed hug from his seat next to her on the couch. They might have turned off the television or changed the channel, if Taylor didn't have a death grip on the remote.
"While no names were provided the press release states that all three were involved in a multi-year bullying and academic sabotage campaign against another student, also unnamed. This campaign led to the incident at Winslow on Monday night. While there are no other details in the press release our own investigations show that emergency services dispatched to Winslow removed an unnamed minor from the premises. No arrests were made at that time, but a single leaked picture of the 'biohazard spill' shows a school locker with a bloody handprint visible on the inside and an obviously cut-off padlock set to the side."
It was at this point that Danny was able to get over his own shock and anger and turn off the television by pushing the power button on the front.
It took another couple of hours, but eventually they all made it to bed.
Maybe she should try and get Panacea a gift? Then again, she normally doesn't accept money and stuff for healing. Hmmm. She'd have to think on it. Or maybe ask her on Saturday. Perhaps see if she had thought any more about the greenhouse.
Taylor took advantage of her new phone's data connection and checked the news and weather while still in bed. Looked like a nice, if somewhat chilly, day today. She avoided PHO, figuring it was probably a time-sink she didn't need before breakfast, and eventually got up and dressed. Then, to get into the habit of doing so, she popped the earpiece in, clipped the phone to her pants, and wandered downstairs.
She found her father making breakfast, apparently having gotten up before her today. Or maybe she had spent longer playing with her phone than she thought. His phone was noticeably absent, though. Then again, he hadn't gotten dressed for the day yet. She watched as he prepared pancakes and breakfast sausages, wishing they had some blueberries for the pancakes.
Taylor realized that Uncle Jacob wasn't in the house when he suddenly entered her range, startling her. She hadn't realized she was in area-mode, having assumed she was in line of sight mode when she hadn't sensed Uncle Jacob's snark upon waking. Hmm, she did need to talk about which mode she should normally be in. Today was probably as good a day as any to bring it up.
"Morning Taylor," Jacob said as he came in, before he looked over at Danny. "Huh, you already started cooking."
"Yep," Danny answered, finishing up a stack of pancakes. He popped a couple of sausages on the side and placed the plate in front of Taylor. "Where were you so early?"
"I found the lack of orange juice disturbing when I noticed it this morning," Jacob said. "So I sought to rectify it."
"Don't suppose you discovered that the nearest grocers doesn't sell orange juice," Danny asked, grinning as he poured out the next set of pancakes.
"The nearest doesn't sell it, the next nearest was sold out and won't have any until Tuesday, and the third nearest won't open for another twenty minutes," Jacob replied. "As you can probably tell by the fact I brought no orange juice back with me, I gave up for now. I will, however, find some later and it will make it into your fridge. Then, and only then, will I be happy!"
Taylor quietly snickered as she got up, grabbing a glass on her way to the fridge. She removed a greenish plastic pitcher from the door of the fridge, shook it a little, then twisted the lid to open the spout and poured herself a glass of orange juice from it. She then closed the spout, put the pitcher back into the fridge, and brought her glass of orange juice back to the table before taking a sip and returning to eating her pancakes.
"Or I can feel like a fool, apparently," Jacob finally said, having watched all of that. "Why is your orange juice in a pitcher?"
"Because I have a habit of opening the cartons wrong while half asleep," Danny replied. "I have no problem with the pitcher, but can never remember there is a spout on the cartons. Then they don't close properly, so we dump it in the pitcher."
"At this point I just fill the pitcher first chance I get after the carton is opened," Taylor added. "Less hassle that way. Unless we actually find it in a proper bottle, he has no problem then."
"Stupid pitcher, stupid grocer," Jacob mumbled just barely loud enough for the other two to hear and snicker about as he got himself a glass of orange juice. By the time he was done mumbling he also had a plate in front of him, so he began eating.
After everyone had eaten their fill, Danny had gotten ready for the day, and the extra pancakes were packed away in the freezer for another day, the three sat there in the kitchen with a drink each.
"I don't believe we have anything planned for today," Danny finally said. "I was instructed that if I called the office before showing up Monday morning that they would force me to take another week off, so I haven't even informed them of the new phone number."
"According to the news Winslow is still closed and they haven't even started figuring out what to do about moving everyone around," Taylor added. "Though that makes me wonder if I can try and get into Arcadia."
"You likely will get some help with that once you join the Wards," Jacob admitted. "Not that it will be hard for them to 'sneak' you in amongst whomever else ends up there. You will likely be annoyed with the placement tests, though."
"Possibly," Taylor said. "I kind of want to get out of the house, but need to discuss something first."
Jacob and Danny looked at each other, wondering what would need to be discussed before getting out of the house. Beyond maybe not hovering constantly?
Taylor waited for them to finish their attempt at non-verbal communication, then continued. "So, my snark sense has the two modes. I don't know if it would be better to normally be in line of sight mode, and thus only seeing snarks that are in front of me, or to normally be in area mode, and thus know the location of every parahuman in my range. And before either of you ask, I checked, no off switch."
"That is an interesting problem," Jacob admitted after a couple of minutes. "I don't have two modes to my sense, so it hasn't come up with me. Would I be correct in assuming that line of sight is going to be much more of a 'look, a parahuman!' reaction mentally as you spot them?"
"That seems to be the case, yea," Taylor said. "In area mode they just kinda appear on my senses. Then again, that could be just that I have gotten familiar with your snark."
"That could invalidate things, hmmm," Jacob said, thinking. "I suspect that, for now, being aware of parahumans nearby is the best bet. Line of sight might be less overwhelming if you are around enough parahumans, but I doubt that is going to come up often."
"With that somewhat decided for now," Danny said, looking at Taylor. "Do you have any preference for where you would like to go out of the house?"
"I don't suppose we can find me a nice blunt self defense weapon?" Taylor asked, hunching down a little. "I kinda have an urge to hit something, if you know what I mean."
"Right, powers want to be used," Jacob mumbled, then spoke up as he continued. "How have you lasted this long without using that part of your power?"
"Mainly a desire not to accidentally hurt either of you or cause damage in the house," Taylor admitted. "Getting a bit more difficult to push to the side as time goes on, though."
"Come on kiddo," Danny said, getting up. "Let's go see about buying you something to hit things with. We will have to think about where to go so you can actually do so, though."
The three of them ended up visiting the boardwalk, Taylor finally seeing the car kit for Danny's phone in the process. They noticed an unusually large number of teenagers about for a weekday morning, but with an entire high school closed that wasn't really a surprise. Danny led them down a side street to a slightly out of the way used equipment shop that he claimed the dock workers frequented.
Inside Taylor and Jacob looked around and the various items. They found that there was a mixture of survival gear, training and self defense equipment, and used books. Jacob drifted towards some of the knives while Taylor wandered over towards a collection of clubs and batons, coupled with the occasional baseball bat. She found a decent-looking collapsible baton that felt nice in her hand after she figured out how to get it open and closed. She couldn't find a brand, but it was labeled "Tac-Smack".
Danny had gone to find the owner, given that nobody appeared to be manning the counter. He wandered back, the owner trailing behind him, apparently catching up from who knows when. Danny gave Taylor a look, seeing her holding a single item, and gestured that she should grab another or two. So Taylor looked over some of the other items, finding a decent wooden baseball bat that she liked the feel of. As she carried both over towards the counter a display of folding shovels got her attention as well. No, wait, they were labeled as being 'entrenching tools'. She supposed her power wouldn't work on them if swung edge-on, but grabbed one anyway.
Jacob wandered over with a single small hunting knife, saw the entrenching tool Taylor had grabbed, and after some thought decided to grab one of his own. He would have the opposite issue, needing to swing edge-on, but the basic tool should work for both of their powers. Though now that the thought about it, she wasn't sure how they would explain their selections if asked.
"Decent choice on the shovels," the owner said, looking over their selections. "Many find them good for camping, and that is the sturdier model. Not my preference on the knife, but everyone's different there. Though why does the little lady need a bat and baton?"
"Bat's easier to have ready to grab in a pinch at home," Danny answered before Taylor had thought of anything. "But the baton is easier to keep in a bag. She had some trouble recently, you see. Thank goodness Panacea was able to help her, but having something to at hand, if only for the confidence boost, is the main reason we swung by today."
That was a nicely prepared reason. Taylor wondered if a visit like this was considered even before the revelation about her triggering?
"Well, those should serve you well," the owner said, ringing everything up. Jacob had his card handed over before Danny even had his wallet out, and got a glare for it, but no argument. Taylor was given a quick lesson on properly using the collapsible baton, then they took their purchases and left.
The three of them ended up visiting a park in the docks area. It was run-down, in part because there were no residences in use or businesses open in the area anymore. Some careful checking indicated that they should be unobserved, and Taylor gleefully went at hitting the broken beyond repair swingset with her power channeled through first the bat, then the collapsible baton, and finally the shovel. She wasn't strong enough to cause much damage to the thing, though she was getting a good rattling thunk with each swing.
Jacob was a bit more discreet testing the hunting knife with his power, finding it acceptable as he cut some weeds. The shovel surprised him, though. He thought he might have to sharpen it up a bit, but the thing seemed useful and fairly easy to carry. Without sharpening it might even serve as a less lethal "edged" weapon that still had some mass behind it.
Danny sat there, half watching and half trying to figure out some of the features on his phone. Better to know how to use things and never need them than the other way around, right?
Eventually Taylor had worked out her need to hit things and they packed up and left, returning to the boardwalk for lunch. Which Jacob paid for again before Danny even thought about doing so, by virtue of collecting everyone's orders and then leaving them at a table while he played fetch. Taylor was finding it interesting that she had not noticed any snarks other than her Uncle's, a trend that continued as wandered through various shops after lunch.
"Oooh, look," Taylor said as they poked around a toy store. "Nerf bats."
"Do you actually want Nerf bats?" Danny asked, looking at Taylor. "Why?"
"They are blunt and generally safe to whack things with," Taylor returned, dropping all the hints needed. "And look, they come in several sizes!"
They ended up leaving with four different foam bats, and Danny finally got to pay for something. The smallest was a foot long and all foam except for a plastic handle, allowing it to be compressed down quite a bit. The other three all had a solid plastic core that was wrapped in foam, meaning that they could hit harder than they looked at first glance, and topped out at three feet long. All of them were advertised as using a tinker-derived foam that was guaranteed to last years even if you subjected it to insane abuse for a foam toy.
Which meant that you were still out of luck if you, say, swung one at Lung.
By the time they made it back to the car Taylor had whacked both adults multiple times with the smallest foam bat, directly and indirectly. Just because she could. Neither complained, because they were enjoying her good mood too much.
Once they got home Taylor had dug around and found a sling bag in the attic that she could stick the cell phone, collapsible baton, and compressed foam bat into individual pockets of with room left over for a water bottle and a couple other miscellaneous items. It even had a couple of loops that she could, if desired, re-purpose with minimal effort to hold her "entrenching tool" to the outside of it. That was, admittedly, probably going a bit far for carrying around all the time. Perhaps she would see about carrying that in-costume? Once she had a costume, anyway.
By the time she had finished it was time for dinner. Uncle Jacob had thrown a frozen lasagna in the oven, which while not as good as homemade still ended up fully devoured. Then, because they had little better to do they actually sat down and watched the news together.
"Tonight's top story is the supposed biohazard spill at Winslow High School," the anchorman started at the top of the hour. "Most of our information on this horrible situation had been through observation of actions being taken, official sources being oddly silent on what was actually going on. That silence ended earlier today when it was announced that three individuals responsible for the 'spill' had been taken into custody and had already entered into plea agreements."
Taylor had frozen, her uncle carefully wrapping her in a one-armed hug from his seat next to her on the couch. They might have turned off the television or changed the channel, if Taylor didn't have a death grip on the remote.
"While no names were provided the press release states that all three were involved in a multi-year bullying and academic sabotage campaign against another student, also unnamed. This campaign led to the incident at Winslow on Monday night. While there are no other details in the press release our own investigations show that emergency services dispatched to Winslow removed an unnamed minor from the premises. No arrests were made at that time, but a single leaked picture of the 'biohazard spill' shows a school locker with a bloody handprint visible on the inside and an obviously cut-off padlock set to the side."
It was at this point that Danny was able to get over his own shock and anger and turn off the television by pushing the power button on the front.
It took another couple of hours, but eventually they all made it to bed.
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Chapter 4
The next morning Jacob was the first one up and he quickly decided that cooking was not in the cards this morning. Luckily he had already scoped out the nearest donut shop. He returned with a pile of donuts, muffins, and other assorted pastries. He spent a few minutes laying them all out so that it was easier to see what he had grabbed, and to deal with the fact he ripped a couple of the boxes because he wasn't paying attention.
He then spent a few minutes tidying up some of what they hadn't gotten around to taking care of the night before. Then, hearing nothing from upstairs, he pulled his phone out, established a secure connection back to the PRT, and checked to see if he could find more details on what had gone done with Winslow. Mainly because it seemed to have happened way too fast and he felt there was a story there.
It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for. Mainly because Emily had flagged the relevant files for him, and it looked like ensured he had access to a couple he wouldn't normally be allowed access to. He quickly bumped Brockton Bay up a couple of slots on his "to visit professionally as Jacob" list while the file packet was downloading. After a moment's thought he also bumped it down in his "to visit as Jack" list.
Leaning back as the download completed he listened carefully. Still no signs of movement from upstairs, so it was unlikely anyone was about to come down. He tapped on the first file, which turned out to be an overview of everything they found from the locker itself. He skimmed it, not really wanting to lose his breakfast before he had a chance to eat it. Nothing jumped out at him as surprising, really, beyond that they had found fingerprints on the added lock, but as anyone could have grabbed it for a moment after the locker was closed they were not likely to be usable as evidence.
Moving onto the next file in the stack he found it was their review of Taylor's bully records. A summary at the top indicated that they were able to corroborate just over ninety percent of them with the three main tormentors. How had they pulled that off? He got his answer when it turned out the next two files were similar records, two of her three main bullies had kept logs of their own about what they were doing to Taylor. The last entries in one of the two being the planning and preparation for the locker. Who the hell keeps that kind of records of their misdeeds?
In Boston an impeccably dressed man sneezed suddenly, triggering an emergency check of the cleanliness of the room, the vents, that his laundry detergent had not been messed with, and a dozen other things.
Closer to home, a man covered in dragon tattoos wearing a metal mask also sneezed. He thought nothing of it, returning to his true enemy, the one he would never defeat, that could only ever be held at bay for another day. But the paperwork needed to keep his gang running had to be dealt with, and he trusted no other to complete it.
If only his power gave him an ability that could help him here, but no. He had to get an ability that only really worked well in combat with less annoying foes.
The fifth file was the first he needed his higher clearance for, and once unlocked made him want to hurt someone. Or several someones. One of Taylor's tormentors, specifically the one that had apparently done most of the physical bullying and had arranged most of the dirty work in preparing the locker, had been a Ward. He read through the latest additions to the file, finding that her (unnamed) PRT liaison and monitor was being brought up on charges of criminal negligence. They had known, and kept records of, most of the probation-violating activities Sophia was engaging in, but had not reported any of them up the chain. He wasn't cleared for the linked document that apparently detailed all the covered up actions, though.
Moving on to avoid taking his anger out on something that didn't deserve it, like his brother-in-law's entire house, he found a summary of the legal actions taken against the three girls and a basic description of why for each.
First up was Madison Clements. She had gotten off lightly with mandatory therapy sessions, a restraining order, and a threat that the next time she stepped out of line they would revisit this case as well. Luckily for her it was because she had apparently turned herself in Tuesday morning, before anyone even knew to look for her, and voluntarily handed over her log of what she had done to Taylor since the two started at Winslow. That and other evidence showed that she was mostly kept in the dark about the locker and had been told that Taylor had been released before lunchtime. Her parents had agreed to the plea deal to keep her out of juvie, and had done so quickly to hopefully keep their names out of the press.
Emma Barnes was next. Apparently when a search warrant was executed on Tuesday evening they found that she had also kept a log of things done to Taylor, hers including details on the locker that she would have otherwise had no way of knowing. She also had kept records of running around with Hess on unofficial patrols. They found the makeshift costume, spare crossbow bolts, and two illegal handguns in her closet as well. In her case she was going to juvie, as part of a plea to get out of being tried as an adult due to her activities with Hess and the two handguns. Jacob also thought that the PRT had likely also pointed out that if it went to court Emma's name would probably become known to the gangs that she and Sophia had been targeting.
Which led him to Sophia Hess, who had not, in fact, gotten a plea deal like the news had reported. Apparently her probation being violated in the ways it had, coupled with the evidence collected from both her own bedroom and the Barnes household, meant that she was headed straight for prison for previous crimes. She would get additional days in court, closed sessions, to likely add to her list of charges later. Huh, apparently the trust fund that had been set up for her as a Ward had been stripped from her and transferred to Taylor. Jacob wondered how they would be explaining that one.
The last file was a basic description of how they were going to handle Shadow Stalker 'leaving' the Wards. A couple of impersonations by someone else as she supposedly left the city, having 'discovered a new aspect to her power' that was causing her to re-brand. Supposedly. Jacob snorted at that, he knew of four previous times a similar ruse had been used. PHO had yet to believe any of them.
Jacob absently wondered if Hess's time in prison, unable to use her power, would drive her legally insane due to the mental issues with parahumans needing to use their powers. Or maybe they had a nice cell picked out that she could use her powers inside of, but not escape from? Oh well, not his problem unless she escaped. At that point she was probably fair game. Maybe he should invest in a taser, just in case?
To be safe he wiped the local copies of the files from his phone. He didn't expect Taylor or Danny to be poking around on it, but information security was still a good thing.
About ten minutes later Danny wandered down, saw the pile of food on the table, and decided to be lazy. He walked over to the landline (his cell still being upstairs) and called Taylor's cell phone, telling her that breakfast was ready. Jacob snickered, then wandered into the kitchen to eat as he heard Taylor moving.
Taylor had gotten up, noted that her uncle was not in the house, and gotten dressed. She then laid back down on her bed and starting playing with her phone. She did spare some thought to whether or not it was a good thing that she hadn't even had the thing a week and she was already getting into the habit of checking sites like PHO every morning. Then again, she wasn't yet in the habit of staring at it even as she walked down the street, so it couldn't be too bad.
She felt her uncle return, but didn't bother heading downstairs yet. She was busy reading up on what PHO thought of the revelations from the day before. Apparently this was a Ziz plot, a PRT cover up, a Protectorate cover up, an attempt to frame the PRT, an attempt to frame the Protectorate, and an attempt to discredit the entire Brockton Bay school system. All at the same time.
Then again, the people saying that they were specifically covering up a trigger event were, kinda, right, assuming that those that would be covering it up knew that she had triggered. Which she didn't believe they did.
She moved onto other local cape news and found that nobody had seen Shadow Stalker for most of the week. Then again, that happened every couple of months. Vista had been absent from sightings for longer at this point, actually, approaching two weeks now.
Lung had apparently been spotted late last night in a bar down by the docks. That wasn't uncommon either, though the lack of barfight was a tad out of the ordinary. Some people were convinced Lung started the fights intentionally so he could ramp up enough to flush his system, preventing hangovers. Taylor just assumed he was usually an angry drunk, but felt the other theory had merit too.
Taylor then found a thread linking to where someone had uploaded a clip of Glory Girl flying into a brick wall while staring at her cell phone. Taylor watched it and read the comments, on and off of PHO, mentally noting that she needed to never get in the habit of staring at hers while walking even as she snickered.
Having run out of local happenings she wandered into some of the more wild sections of PHO, finding a thread where a few people were complaining about the general lack of lizard-themed capes. Or lizard Case 53s. Or cape lizards. Really, any and all combinations of "cape" and "lizard". Taylor didn't get the appeal, personally. But she recalled a few months ago there was a similar thread relating to insects, which she didn't get the appeal of either. Stupid little things were creepy.
She was interrupted from further browsing by the phone ringing. She tapped the button on the screen to answer and it did nothing. Right, she had to swipe the circle on the screen, because it wasn't a button. She did that and the call connected. "Hello?"
"Hey kiddo," her father's voice came through the earpiece she had in. She was liking that bit more and more, no need to hold the phone up to her head. "Your uncle picked up breakfast, come on down to eat."
"Will do, thanks," Taylor responded. The call had disconnected before she had finished, though. She closed down PHO and headed downstairs.
Breakfast was, after some "are you ok?" style pleasantries related to the day before, a quiet affair. There was, however, a lot left over as Jacob had gone a bit overboard. True to having been told to stuff herself regularly Taylor had consumed a small apple fritter, a chocolate chip muffin, and a jelly donut. Danny and Jacob had thought that the donut was pushing it, even with her temporarily increased appetite, but it just looked too tasty when she noticed it.
Taylor occupied herself with packing up the leftovers in various ways while Danny headed upstairs to get ready for the day and Jacob exchanged text messages with someone. Looking over the pile she was working with Taylor wondered if they should consider bringing some to the neighbors or something, otherwise a lot of this was going to go to waste.
"Uncle Jacob?" Taylor called, knowing that he was in the hallway. "Think we should share some of your breakfast purchase with the neighbors or something?"
"No need," Jacob replied. "I doubt it will last the day."
What?
"Our visitors today will likely finish off the rest," Jacob continued.
"What visitors?" Danny asked as he came down the stairs, fiddling with the way his belt clip for the cell phone was positioned. "I wasn't aware we were expecting any?"
"Bonesaw will be by in the next couple of hours to meet Taylor and talk to her about what can be done in the way of upgrades," Jacob said, smirking. "And Bonesaw never visits new capes alone."
Well, so much for any plans of this being a relaxing day where they did nothing.
An hour later Taylor was poking around on PHO, this time reading through a thread discussing Über and Leet's shenanigans. Apparently around five out of nine of their stunts were not, in fact, doing anything seriously illegal, or in some cases illegal at all, even when it looked like they were breaking the law. They apparently hired henchmen of sorts to participate when they couldn't use robots and holograms.
Their last Sonic the Hedgehog show with stealing emeralds and gold rings from a jewelry store was even legit, having arranged it with the owner as a publicity stunt and even gotten appropriate permits and stuff. Who knew? Must be why law enforcement didn't always go after them. Though they likely had to pay fines a lot.
Taylor's browsing was interrupted by her snark sense going off. Three parahumans had just entered her range and were coming towards the house. As a precaution she put her phone away and grabbed her new bat, which Jacob noticed.
"If you just picked up some parahumans then that that is probably our expected guests," Jacob said. "As such they are likely friendly."
"Would you be willing to trust that?" Taylor returned with a look.
"Well, no, not really," Jacob admitted. "Then again, I was told they were only a couple blocks away a moment ago."
Taylor put the bat back down, but kept it handy. Jacob nodded in approval, because they did not exactly live in a 'safe' world, as he got up to go check on who was arriving. Taylor did not hear the greetings, but shortly Jacob returned with a group of people. Taylor intentionally avoided starting conversations with their snarks for now.
"Taylor, I would like you to meet some of my associates," Jacob said, gesturing to the group. "First up is Riley, who you better know as Bonesaw." A young-looking blond girl wearing a backpack curtseyed. "With her mother, Amanda." An older woman with blond hair nodded. "Ned, who you would know better as Crawler." A skinny man with brown hair that looked like a breeze would blow him over waved. "William, who you may be familiar with from the Manton Effect named after him." An older man with unkempt hair nodded in her direction. Hmm, he had a snark? "And his daughter Sarah, who you would know as The Siberian." The last individual, a female that looked to be in her twenties with long, dark hair and a fair complexion, also waved at her. She did not have a snark.
She was a snark. William's snark, in fact.
Hello? Taylor projected at 'Sarah'. Who visibly flinched. As did William a moment later.
"How did you do that?" Sarah asked, startled. "Saying hello in my head?"
"You are an interesting snark," Taylor said, tilting her head as though to look at Sarah from a different angle. "I am under the impression very few are good with English."
"Right," Jacob said, gesturing to Taylor. "This is my niece, Taylor. She has no cape name at this point."
"Well aren't you interesting," Riley said, bouncing over to Taylor. "What's a snark?"
[Query]
Yes, I can see you there. How are you?
"Snarks are what I call the things that grant powers," Taylor answered Riley. "Or perhaps what the snark that grants me my power decided to call the things that grant powers?"
[Content]
So Riley here gives you plenty to play with? Good for you. But I heard you like making her cause pain. Why?
"So you can see them?" Riley asked, poking Taylor in the forehead. "What do they look like?"
[Declaration. Determination.]
So you use the pain as a way of monitoring the nerves while you work? But so many things are washed away by the pain. How do you monitor the nerves that make someone feel pleasure, for example?
"They don't really look like anything specific?" Taylor said. "Or perhaps I should say, each one is different? William's looks like Sarah right now, for example. Yours looks like a spider, but not really?"
[Confusion. Contemplation.]
"I like spiders," Riley said, grinning. She swung the backpack she was wearing around to her front and opened it, showing a largely mechanical spider. "They're fun!"
"Neat," Taylor admitted. She was kinda happy that Riley was providing all the prompts here. She had no idea what to talk about. She glanced over at Ned.
Hello?
{Boredom}
No, I don't think any of us want to fight you.
"No, I don't look much like Crawler right now," Ned admitted. "I have a mental switch in my head, takes about an hour to transition either way."
{Annoyance}
Well aren't you rude. No, I will not fight you just because you want a fight.
"At least you can do your own grocery shopping?" Taylor offered. How do you respond to something like that?
"There is that, I suppose," Ned said, shrugging. "Just the way things work."
"So you can not only tell that I am a parahuman," William said, gesturing towards Sarah. "But that she is a result of my power?"
"Yep," Taylor said, poking again, but directing at William and not Sarah.
Hello
|Annoyance|
"Well that's interesting," Taylor mumbled, looking over at Sarah. Who hadn't reacted this time.
Why shouldn't you be here?
|Confusion. Hunger.|
"What is interesting?" Riley asked, looking at Taylor.
You aren't supposed to be joined? You weren't fed properly? I don't understand.
|Annoyance|
"Fine, be that way," Taylor grumbled.
"Er, hello?" Riley said, poking Taylor again. "Earth to Taylor?"
"William's snark is just plain mean when I don't talk to Sarah," Taylor grumbled. "Ned's is a bit rude, but more in a single-minded way? Then again, William's may just be hungry."
"You are a fascinating cape," Amanda finally said, shaking her head. "What are your actual powers, anyway? I am getting conflicting ideas here, what with the spacing out just now and Sarah's odd reactions and all."
"The spacing out is probably because she is having issues focusing on us," Jacob admitted. "She can communicate with parahuman powers, which includes being able to locate them. She can also do my blade trick, but with blunt weapons instead."
"Objects," Taylor corrected, causing everyone to look at her. "What? Weapons is too specific, it is blunt objects."
"I find myself wondering why the distinction," Danny said, coming in from the kitchen. "I'm Danny, by the way, Taylor's father. I heard the rest of the introductions, but was curious how Taylor was going to respond to new parahumans."
Taylor decided to demonstrate a little, pulling out the smallest foam bat from the bag she had nearby. "If anyone can honestly think this would be classified as a blunt weapon they probably need to re-evaluate their view of the world." She then bopped Riley on the head with it normally, followed by William with her power.
Bopping Ned was a bad idea, she figured. Probably just as bad as bopping Lung would be.
"I can see that it works," William admitted. "But not why is it not a weapon? Powers can be weird about their definitions."
"Yes, well," Taylor continued, lightly kicking William. From across the room. He stumbled, then stared at Taylor.
"Did you just kick me?" William finally asked.
"Yep," Taylor grinned.
"How?" William asked. "That doesn't match anything you told us."
"My shoe is a blunt object," Taylor stated, crossing her arms like she had just made her point. Which, to be honest, she basically had, because until then he had not realized that clothes were usually 'blunt'.
"My power works with scissors, bolt cutters, utility knives," Jacob said, counting things off with his fingers. "Sheets of paper, business cards, oh, and apparently shovels if I swing them the right way. So I can see where the distinction comes from. I need an edge, she needs a blunt surface."
"You need to do paper cuts on the next Slaughterhouse run," Riley said, grinning. "That would be hilarious."
"But then I might have to stop giving annoying people papercuts when I hand over business cards," Jacob retorted. "Or annoying clerks when I hand over piles of annoying paperwork. Just to keep them from making the connection between Jacob and Jack. Might pull the shovel, though. Maybe I can find the right kind of rake?"
"I stand corrected," Riley said, snickering. "You keep your little secret. Much more fun thinking about the random people you give papercuts to for being annoying. That and using garden tools on gang members."
"You are not supposed to extract enjoyment from the suffering of others," Amanda scolded. "No matter who it is that is suffering."
"Yes mom," Riley said, rolling her eyes. "Can I drag Taylor off to discuss the violations of the natural order I can grant her now?"
"Go ahead dear," Amanda said, obviously knowing that Riley, due to her powers, was unlikely to ever get the "suffering of others should not be enjoyed" bit down.
Riley's spider crawled back into her bag as Riley dragged Taylor off of the couch, allowing Taylor to collect her bag and the bat she had leaning against the couch while Riley pulled her backpack back on, then dragged her out of the room. Only to stop a moment later.
"Er," Riley said. "Where is your room? Or a good place to talk? Whichever?"
This time Taylor rolled her eyes, and led Riley upstairs. "Come on, squirt."
"I don't know if she is antisocial, broken, or both," Amanda finally said after the two had made it up the stairs.
"Both, I think," Danny said, collapsing onto the couch. "Probably made worse by her power pushing her to be more social when she doesn't want to be, really."
"Or at least that is what I think is happening in some ways," Jacob added. "Our powers interact with one another, preventing me from getting a proper read on her."
"So yea," Ned said, sounding annoyed. "As fun as all of this is, someone told us there would be food?"
"There's a pile of pastries in the kitchen," Jacob said, pointing. "I picked up plenty."
Danny feared what it was going to take to clean the kitchen when Ned was done in there.
"So you can pull the projected weapon trick," Riley said. "And yes I know it is blunt object. But if it works like Jack's you can't put more force behind it than you could if you hit them directly, right?"
"Correct," Taylor said. "I also assume I can only take a hit like a normal teenage girl."
"Most likely," Riley said. "So some strength and toughness upgrades may be a good thing."
[Observation]
Huh, neat.
"So you would enhance my muscles with nanofibers and improved ligaments," Taylor said, tapping her chin. "Add a protective layer under the skin, and wrappings on my skeletal structure? Maybe some adjustments to my joints to make them stronger and more flexible?"
"Er, yes," Riley said, a bit shocked. "How did you know that?"
"Your snark showed me some of what you have done," Taylor said, waving it off. "But the under-skin protection and the skeletal wrappings won't grow with me; is that why you look younger than you should?"
"That is creepy," Riley whispered, then shook her head and spoke up. "Yea, I kinda upgraded myself without thinking about the fact it would keep me short. I like being short for now, but I may regret it when I am older."
"What if you made things segmented?" Taylor asked.
Could the wrappings and protections be made to interlock so they can extend and adjust?
[Curiosity]
"Extending wrappings?" Riley mumbled. "Individual protective and enhancement zones that connect, but aren't permanently joined? It would add weak points as you grew, but would require less mandatory tweaking over time if done right."
[Excitement]
Riley pulled a notebook out of her bag, the spider-bot passing her a sharpened pencil. Once she found a blank page she started sketching and making notes.
Huh, guess you just needed the basic idea?
Taylor leaned over to look at Riley's work, only for her glasses to slip off one ear and flip off to the side.
"Oooh, we should fix your eyes too," Riley said, looking over at the glasses. "Maybe upgrade them? Need to think on it; eyes can be difficult."
Over the next couple of hours they would brainstorm a number of ideas and workarounds, many of which weren't slated for Taylor at all but came about from Taylor looking at previous things Riley had done to others.
"About time you two came down," Amanda said, seeing Taylor and Riley wandering down the stairs. William and Sarah were sitting on the couch. Taylor was aware that Ned and Jacob had left not that long ago.
"Danny, Jacob, and Ned left to pick up a late lunch," William said as Taylor and Riley both had their stomachs growl. "Or perhaps an early dinner? You two were at it for a while."
"I think I need to buy Taylor a new notebook," Riley admitted. "I ran out of room in mine and grabbed one of hers. So many ideas..." Riley trailed off with a grin on her face.
"I get the feeling that if you haven't already traded phone numbers it will have to happen before the day is out," Amanda said, shaking her head. "Then again, Riley doesn't have enough friends of any age."
It wasn't long before the three returned with piles of pizza. Fourteen large pizzas, two for each of them minus Sarah who didn't actually eat. While the distribution wasn't quite even they still finished them all off before the visiting group departed, Riley and Taylor having exchanged contact information.
Taylor would visit the hospital in the morning for a "checkup" with Panacea as a cover for Riley implementing many of their ideas.
He then spent a few minutes tidying up some of what they hadn't gotten around to taking care of the night before. Then, hearing nothing from upstairs, he pulled his phone out, established a secure connection back to the PRT, and checked to see if he could find more details on what had gone done with Winslow. Mainly because it seemed to have happened way too fast and he felt there was a story there.
It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for. Mainly because Emily had flagged the relevant files for him, and it looked like ensured he had access to a couple he wouldn't normally be allowed access to. He quickly bumped Brockton Bay up a couple of slots on his "to visit professionally as Jacob" list while the file packet was downloading. After a moment's thought he also bumped it down in his "to visit as Jack" list.
Leaning back as the download completed he listened carefully. Still no signs of movement from upstairs, so it was unlikely anyone was about to come down. He tapped on the first file, which turned out to be an overview of everything they found from the locker itself. He skimmed it, not really wanting to lose his breakfast before he had a chance to eat it. Nothing jumped out at him as surprising, really, beyond that they had found fingerprints on the added lock, but as anyone could have grabbed it for a moment after the locker was closed they were not likely to be usable as evidence.
Moving onto the next file in the stack he found it was their review of Taylor's bully records. A summary at the top indicated that they were able to corroborate just over ninety percent of them with the three main tormentors. How had they pulled that off? He got his answer when it turned out the next two files were similar records, two of her three main bullies had kept logs of their own about what they were doing to Taylor. The last entries in one of the two being the planning and preparation for the locker. Who the hell keeps that kind of records of their misdeeds?
In Boston an impeccably dressed man sneezed suddenly, triggering an emergency check of the cleanliness of the room, the vents, that his laundry detergent had not been messed with, and a dozen other things.
Closer to home, a man covered in dragon tattoos wearing a metal mask also sneezed. He thought nothing of it, returning to his true enemy, the one he would never defeat, that could only ever be held at bay for another day. But the paperwork needed to keep his gang running had to be dealt with, and he trusted no other to complete it.
If only his power gave him an ability that could help him here, but no. He had to get an ability that only really worked well in combat with less annoying foes.
The fifth file was the first he needed his higher clearance for, and once unlocked made him want to hurt someone. Or several someones. One of Taylor's tormentors, specifically the one that had apparently done most of the physical bullying and had arranged most of the dirty work in preparing the locker, had been a Ward. He read through the latest additions to the file, finding that her (unnamed) PRT liaison and monitor was being brought up on charges of criminal negligence. They had known, and kept records of, most of the probation-violating activities Sophia was engaging in, but had not reported any of them up the chain. He wasn't cleared for the linked document that apparently detailed all the covered up actions, though.
Moving on to avoid taking his anger out on something that didn't deserve it, like his brother-in-law's entire house, he found a summary of the legal actions taken against the three girls and a basic description of why for each.
First up was Madison Clements. She had gotten off lightly with mandatory therapy sessions, a restraining order, and a threat that the next time she stepped out of line they would revisit this case as well. Luckily for her it was because she had apparently turned herself in Tuesday morning, before anyone even knew to look for her, and voluntarily handed over her log of what she had done to Taylor since the two started at Winslow. That and other evidence showed that she was mostly kept in the dark about the locker and had been told that Taylor had been released before lunchtime. Her parents had agreed to the plea deal to keep her out of juvie, and had done so quickly to hopefully keep their names out of the press.
Emma Barnes was next. Apparently when a search warrant was executed on Tuesday evening they found that she had also kept a log of things done to Taylor, hers including details on the locker that she would have otherwise had no way of knowing. She also had kept records of running around with Hess on unofficial patrols. They found the makeshift costume, spare crossbow bolts, and two illegal handguns in her closet as well. In her case she was going to juvie, as part of a plea to get out of being tried as an adult due to her activities with Hess and the two handguns. Jacob also thought that the PRT had likely also pointed out that if it went to court Emma's name would probably become known to the gangs that she and Sophia had been targeting.
Which led him to Sophia Hess, who had not, in fact, gotten a plea deal like the news had reported. Apparently her probation being violated in the ways it had, coupled with the evidence collected from both her own bedroom and the Barnes household, meant that she was headed straight for prison for previous crimes. She would get additional days in court, closed sessions, to likely add to her list of charges later. Huh, apparently the trust fund that had been set up for her as a Ward had been stripped from her and transferred to Taylor. Jacob wondered how they would be explaining that one.
The last file was a basic description of how they were going to handle Shadow Stalker 'leaving' the Wards. A couple of impersonations by someone else as she supposedly left the city, having 'discovered a new aspect to her power' that was causing her to re-brand. Supposedly. Jacob snorted at that, he knew of four previous times a similar ruse had been used. PHO had yet to believe any of them.
Jacob absently wondered if Hess's time in prison, unable to use her power, would drive her legally insane due to the mental issues with parahumans needing to use their powers. Or maybe they had a nice cell picked out that she could use her powers inside of, but not escape from? Oh well, not his problem unless she escaped. At that point she was probably fair game. Maybe he should invest in a taser, just in case?
To be safe he wiped the local copies of the files from his phone. He didn't expect Taylor or Danny to be poking around on it, but information security was still a good thing.
About ten minutes later Danny wandered down, saw the pile of food on the table, and decided to be lazy. He walked over to the landline (his cell still being upstairs) and called Taylor's cell phone, telling her that breakfast was ready. Jacob snickered, then wandered into the kitchen to eat as he heard Taylor moving.
Taylor had gotten up, noted that her uncle was not in the house, and gotten dressed. She then laid back down on her bed and starting playing with her phone. She did spare some thought to whether or not it was a good thing that she hadn't even had the thing a week and she was already getting into the habit of checking sites like PHO every morning. Then again, she wasn't yet in the habit of staring at it even as she walked down the street, so it couldn't be too bad.
She felt her uncle return, but didn't bother heading downstairs yet. She was busy reading up on what PHO thought of the revelations from the day before. Apparently this was a Ziz plot, a PRT cover up, a Protectorate cover up, an attempt to frame the PRT, an attempt to frame the Protectorate, and an attempt to discredit the entire Brockton Bay school system. All at the same time.
Then again, the people saying that they were specifically covering up a trigger event were, kinda, right, assuming that those that would be covering it up knew that she had triggered. Which she didn't believe they did.
She moved onto other local cape news and found that nobody had seen Shadow Stalker for most of the week. Then again, that happened every couple of months. Vista had been absent from sightings for longer at this point, actually, approaching two weeks now.
Lung had apparently been spotted late last night in a bar down by the docks. That wasn't uncommon either, though the lack of barfight was a tad out of the ordinary. Some people were convinced Lung started the fights intentionally so he could ramp up enough to flush his system, preventing hangovers. Taylor just assumed he was usually an angry drunk, but felt the other theory had merit too.
Taylor then found a thread linking to where someone had uploaded a clip of Glory Girl flying into a brick wall while staring at her cell phone. Taylor watched it and read the comments, on and off of PHO, mentally noting that she needed to never get in the habit of staring at hers while walking even as she snickered.
Having run out of local happenings she wandered into some of the more wild sections of PHO, finding a thread where a few people were complaining about the general lack of lizard-themed capes. Or lizard Case 53s. Or cape lizards. Really, any and all combinations of "cape" and "lizard". Taylor didn't get the appeal, personally. But she recalled a few months ago there was a similar thread relating to insects, which she didn't get the appeal of either. Stupid little things were creepy.
She was interrupted from further browsing by the phone ringing. She tapped the button on the screen to answer and it did nothing. Right, she had to swipe the circle on the screen, because it wasn't a button. She did that and the call connected. "Hello?"
"Hey kiddo," her father's voice came through the earpiece she had in. She was liking that bit more and more, no need to hold the phone up to her head. "Your uncle picked up breakfast, come on down to eat."
"Will do, thanks," Taylor responded. The call had disconnected before she had finished, though. She closed down PHO and headed downstairs.
Breakfast was, after some "are you ok?" style pleasantries related to the day before, a quiet affair. There was, however, a lot left over as Jacob had gone a bit overboard. True to having been told to stuff herself regularly Taylor had consumed a small apple fritter, a chocolate chip muffin, and a jelly donut. Danny and Jacob had thought that the donut was pushing it, even with her temporarily increased appetite, but it just looked too tasty when she noticed it.
Taylor occupied herself with packing up the leftovers in various ways while Danny headed upstairs to get ready for the day and Jacob exchanged text messages with someone. Looking over the pile she was working with Taylor wondered if they should consider bringing some to the neighbors or something, otherwise a lot of this was going to go to waste.
"Uncle Jacob?" Taylor called, knowing that he was in the hallway. "Think we should share some of your breakfast purchase with the neighbors or something?"
"No need," Jacob replied. "I doubt it will last the day."
What?
"Our visitors today will likely finish off the rest," Jacob continued.
"What visitors?" Danny asked as he came down the stairs, fiddling with the way his belt clip for the cell phone was positioned. "I wasn't aware we were expecting any?"
"Bonesaw will be by in the next couple of hours to meet Taylor and talk to her about what can be done in the way of upgrades," Jacob said, smirking. "And Bonesaw never visits new capes alone."
Well, so much for any plans of this being a relaxing day where they did nothing.
An hour later Taylor was poking around on PHO, this time reading through a thread discussing Über and Leet's shenanigans. Apparently around five out of nine of their stunts were not, in fact, doing anything seriously illegal, or in some cases illegal at all, even when it looked like they were breaking the law. They apparently hired henchmen of sorts to participate when they couldn't use robots and holograms.
Their last Sonic the Hedgehog show with stealing emeralds and gold rings from a jewelry store was even legit, having arranged it with the owner as a publicity stunt and even gotten appropriate permits and stuff. Who knew? Must be why law enforcement didn't always go after them. Though they likely had to pay fines a lot.
Taylor's browsing was interrupted by her snark sense going off. Three parahumans had just entered her range and were coming towards the house. As a precaution she put her phone away and grabbed her new bat, which Jacob noticed.
"If you just picked up some parahumans then that that is probably our expected guests," Jacob said. "As such they are likely friendly."
"Would you be willing to trust that?" Taylor returned with a look.
"Well, no, not really," Jacob admitted. "Then again, I was told they were only a couple blocks away a moment ago."
Taylor put the bat back down, but kept it handy. Jacob nodded in approval, because they did not exactly live in a 'safe' world, as he got up to go check on who was arriving. Taylor did not hear the greetings, but shortly Jacob returned with a group of people. Taylor intentionally avoided starting conversations with their snarks for now.
"Taylor, I would like you to meet some of my associates," Jacob said, gesturing to the group. "First up is Riley, who you better know as Bonesaw." A young-looking blond girl wearing a backpack curtseyed. "With her mother, Amanda." An older woman with blond hair nodded. "Ned, who you would know better as Crawler." A skinny man with brown hair that looked like a breeze would blow him over waved. "William, who you may be familiar with from the Manton Effect named after him." An older man with unkempt hair nodded in her direction. Hmm, he had a snark? "And his daughter Sarah, who you would know as The Siberian." The last individual, a female that looked to be in her twenties with long, dark hair and a fair complexion, also waved at her. She did not have a snark.
She was a snark. William's snark, in fact.
Hello? Taylor projected at 'Sarah'. Who visibly flinched. As did William a moment later.
"How did you do that?" Sarah asked, startled. "Saying hello in my head?"
"You are an interesting snark," Taylor said, tilting her head as though to look at Sarah from a different angle. "I am under the impression very few are good with English."
"Right," Jacob said, gesturing to Taylor. "This is my niece, Taylor. She has no cape name at this point."
"Well aren't you interesting," Riley said, bouncing over to Taylor. "What's a snark?"
[Query]
Yes, I can see you there. How are you?
"Snarks are what I call the things that grant powers," Taylor answered Riley. "Or perhaps what the snark that grants me my power decided to call the things that grant powers?"
[Content]
So Riley here gives you plenty to play with? Good for you. But I heard you like making her cause pain. Why?
"So you can see them?" Riley asked, poking Taylor in the forehead. "What do they look like?"
[Declaration. Determination.]
So you use the pain as a way of monitoring the nerves while you work? But so many things are washed away by the pain. How do you monitor the nerves that make someone feel pleasure, for example?
"They don't really look like anything specific?" Taylor said. "Or perhaps I should say, each one is different? William's looks like Sarah right now, for example. Yours looks like a spider, but not really?"
[Confusion. Contemplation.]
"I like spiders," Riley said, grinning. She swung the backpack she was wearing around to her front and opened it, showing a largely mechanical spider. "They're fun!"
"Neat," Taylor admitted. She was kinda happy that Riley was providing all the prompts here. She had no idea what to talk about. She glanced over at Ned.
Hello?
{Boredom}
No, I don't think any of us want to fight you.
"No, I don't look much like Crawler right now," Ned admitted. "I have a mental switch in my head, takes about an hour to transition either way."
{Annoyance}
Well aren't you rude. No, I will not fight you just because you want a fight.
"At least you can do your own grocery shopping?" Taylor offered. How do you respond to something like that?
"There is that, I suppose," Ned said, shrugging. "Just the way things work."
"So you can not only tell that I am a parahuman," William said, gesturing towards Sarah. "But that she is a result of my power?"
"Yep," Taylor said, poking again, but directing at William and not Sarah.
Hello
|Annoyance|
"Well that's interesting," Taylor mumbled, looking over at Sarah. Who hadn't reacted this time.
Why shouldn't you be here?
|Confusion. Hunger.|
"What is interesting?" Riley asked, looking at Taylor.
You aren't supposed to be joined? You weren't fed properly? I don't understand.
|Annoyance|
"Fine, be that way," Taylor grumbled.
"Er, hello?" Riley said, poking Taylor again. "Earth to Taylor?"
"William's snark is just plain mean when I don't talk to Sarah," Taylor grumbled. "Ned's is a bit rude, but more in a single-minded way? Then again, William's may just be hungry."
"You are a fascinating cape," Amanda finally said, shaking her head. "What are your actual powers, anyway? I am getting conflicting ideas here, what with the spacing out just now and Sarah's odd reactions and all."
"The spacing out is probably because she is having issues focusing on us," Jacob admitted. "She can communicate with parahuman powers, which includes being able to locate them. She can also do my blade trick, but with blunt weapons instead."
"Objects," Taylor corrected, causing everyone to look at her. "What? Weapons is too specific, it is blunt objects."
"I find myself wondering why the distinction," Danny said, coming in from the kitchen. "I'm Danny, by the way, Taylor's father. I heard the rest of the introductions, but was curious how Taylor was going to respond to new parahumans."
Taylor decided to demonstrate a little, pulling out the smallest foam bat from the bag she had nearby. "If anyone can honestly think this would be classified as a blunt weapon they probably need to re-evaluate their view of the world." She then bopped Riley on the head with it normally, followed by William with her power.
Bopping Ned was a bad idea, she figured. Probably just as bad as bopping Lung would be.
"I can see that it works," William admitted. "But not why is it not a weapon? Powers can be weird about their definitions."
"Yes, well," Taylor continued, lightly kicking William. From across the room. He stumbled, then stared at Taylor.
"Did you just kick me?" William finally asked.
"Yep," Taylor grinned.
"How?" William asked. "That doesn't match anything you told us."
"My shoe is a blunt object," Taylor stated, crossing her arms like she had just made her point. Which, to be honest, she basically had, because until then he had not realized that clothes were usually 'blunt'.
"My power works with scissors, bolt cutters, utility knives," Jacob said, counting things off with his fingers. "Sheets of paper, business cards, oh, and apparently shovels if I swing them the right way. So I can see where the distinction comes from. I need an edge, she needs a blunt surface."
"You need to do paper cuts on the next Slaughterhouse run," Riley said, grinning. "That would be hilarious."
"But then I might have to stop giving annoying people papercuts when I hand over business cards," Jacob retorted. "Or annoying clerks when I hand over piles of annoying paperwork. Just to keep them from making the connection between Jacob and Jack. Might pull the shovel, though. Maybe I can find the right kind of rake?"
"I stand corrected," Riley said, snickering. "You keep your little secret. Much more fun thinking about the random people you give papercuts to for being annoying. That and using garden tools on gang members."
"You are not supposed to extract enjoyment from the suffering of others," Amanda scolded. "No matter who it is that is suffering."
"Yes mom," Riley said, rolling her eyes. "Can I drag Taylor off to discuss the violations of the natural order I can grant her now?"
"Go ahead dear," Amanda said, obviously knowing that Riley, due to her powers, was unlikely to ever get the "suffering of others should not be enjoyed" bit down.
Riley's spider crawled back into her bag as Riley dragged Taylor off of the couch, allowing Taylor to collect her bag and the bat she had leaning against the couch while Riley pulled her backpack back on, then dragged her out of the room. Only to stop a moment later.
"Er," Riley said. "Where is your room? Or a good place to talk? Whichever?"
This time Taylor rolled her eyes, and led Riley upstairs. "Come on, squirt."
"I don't know if she is antisocial, broken, or both," Amanda finally said after the two had made it up the stairs.
"Both, I think," Danny said, collapsing onto the couch. "Probably made worse by her power pushing her to be more social when she doesn't want to be, really."
"Or at least that is what I think is happening in some ways," Jacob added. "Our powers interact with one another, preventing me from getting a proper read on her."
"So yea," Ned said, sounding annoyed. "As fun as all of this is, someone told us there would be food?"
"There's a pile of pastries in the kitchen," Jacob said, pointing. "I picked up plenty."
Danny feared what it was going to take to clean the kitchen when Ned was done in there.
"So you can pull the projected weapon trick," Riley said. "And yes I know it is blunt object. But if it works like Jack's you can't put more force behind it than you could if you hit them directly, right?"
"Correct," Taylor said. "I also assume I can only take a hit like a normal teenage girl."
"Most likely," Riley said. "So some strength and toughness upgrades may be a good thing."
[Observation]
Huh, neat.
"So you would enhance my muscles with nanofibers and improved ligaments," Taylor said, tapping her chin. "Add a protective layer under the skin, and wrappings on my skeletal structure? Maybe some adjustments to my joints to make them stronger and more flexible?"
"Er, yes," Riley said, a bit shocked. "How did you know that?"
"Your snark showed me some of what you have done," Taylor said, waving it off. "But the under-skin protection and the skeletal wrappings won't grow with me; is that why you look younger than you should?"
"That is creepy," Riley whispered, then shook her head and spoke up. "Yea, I kinda upgraded myself without thinking about the fact it would keep me short. I like being short for now, but I may regret it when I am older."
"What if you made things segmented?" Taylor asked.
Could the wrappings and protections be made to interlock so they can extend and adjust?
[Curiosity]
"Extending wrappings?" Riley mumbled. "Individual protective and enhancement zones that connect, but aren't permanently joined? It would add weak points as you grew, but would require less mandatory tweaking over time if done right."
[Excitement]
Riley pulled a notebook out of her bag, the spider-bot passing her a sharpened pencil. Once she found a blank page she started sketching and making notes.
Huh, guess you just needed the basic idea?
Taylor leaned over to look at Riley's work, only for her glasses to slip off one ear and flip off to the side.
"Oooh, we should fix your eyes too," Riley said, looking over at the glasses. "Maybe upgrade them? Need to think on it; eyes can be difficult."
Over the next couple of hours they would brainstorm a number of ideas and workarounds, many of which weren't slated for Taylor at all but came about from Taylor looking at previous things Riley had done to others.
"About time you two came down," Amanda said, seeing Taylor and Riley wandering down the stairs. William and Sarah were sitting on the couch. Taylor was aware that Ned and Jacob had left not that long ago.
"Danny, Jacob, and Ned left to pick up a late lunch," William said as Taylor and Riley both had their stomachs growl. "Or perhaps an early dinner? You two were at it for a while."
"I think I need to buy Taylor a new notebook," Riley admitted. "I ran out of room in mine and grabbed one of hers. So many ideas..." Riley trailed off with a grin on her face.
"I get the feeling that if you haven't already traded phone numbers it will have to happen before the day is out," Amanda said, shaking her head. "Then again, Riley doesn't have enough friends of any age."
It wasn't long before the three returned with piles of pizza. Fourteen large pizzas, two for each of them minus Sarah who didn't actually eat. While the distribution wasn't quite even they still finished them all off before the visiting group departed, Riley and Taylor having exchanged contact information.
Taylor would visit the hospital in the morning for a "checkup" with Panacea as a cover for Riley implementing many of their ideas.
Chapter 5
Saturday morning Taylor's alarm went off for the first time since the previous Monday. She groaned as she turned the alarm off. She considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but then she wouldn't make it to the hospital in time. That, and Uncle Jacob would soon be coming to ensure she was moving anyway. She amused herself by poking at PHO a little, but didn't really have time to check much there. So she got up and got dressed in the recommended loose, comfortable clothing.
Taylor made her way downstairs and poured herself a bowl of cereal. She poked around on her phone some more, because why not. She most definitely wasn't thinking about what kind of horrific things Riley might be doing to her later, given some of the ideas the two of them had come up with yesterday. Even if most of them wouldn't apply to her.
Uncle Jacob came down, yawning, and made himself some coffee. He then poured himself a bowl of cereal as well and sat across from Taylor, poking at his own phone. Taylor smirked a little at the fact they were both poking at their phones. Then she lost the smirk when she realized he might actually be doing work or something useful compared to her random browsing of the net. Perhaps the comparison wasn't as apt as she had first thought.
Soon they had both eaten and got ready to leave. Danny wasn't going for PRT security and secrecy reasons, officially. The fact he knew everything that was supposed to be kept secret was beside the point. Once they had locked the house up behind them they got into Jacob's rental and headed to the hospital.
When they arrived at the hospital Taylor and Jacob made their way into a secure basement area. Taylor was brought to a room where she changed into a hospital gown, leaving her clothes there. She was told she should keep her phone with her, though. Apparently she may end up using it if she needed to try and communicate while unable to speak? She wasn't sure what the idea was there. Whatever.
She could tell where she was likely going based on where Panacea and Riley were. Still, she was led there by a female PRT officer. She suspected that said officer had no clue what was really going on, though. Once they arrived at what was obviously an operating room with an observation area she was left alone, though she knew that Panacea and Riley were in the next room. In fact, she could feel that even Uncle Jacob was leaving her range, towards what she thought was where the PRT building itself was, leaving just the three parahumans in the building.
Taylor amused herself with a silly little game she found on her phone while she waited for whatever was holding things up. She was very carefully not talking to their snarks, just in case it distracted them from whatever it was they were doing by accident. Ten minutes later Panacea and Riley came in, Riley pulling a cart of tools, and Panacea froze for a moment when she spotted Taylor, but recovered quickly.
"Good morning," Panacea said. "Taylor, was it?"
"Good morning Panacea," Taylor responded. "And good morning Riley."
"Morning Taylor," Riley said, smiling.
"You can call me Amy," Panacea, or rather Amy, said. "Though given what happened to you last week I wonder how you ended up in the know. It may be nice to have someone else to talk to in town about some of this, though."
"Uncle Jacob informed me and my father after I triggered," Taylor responded. Amy raised an eyebrow at that, apparently getting the reference, but opted not to ask too much more. "By the way, have you given any more thought to getting a greenhouse? Your snark would like one."
"You weren't kidding about that?" Amy responded. "Where did the idea even come from?"
"Your snark said it was bored just healing humans," Taylor said, gesturing in Amy's direction. "When I asked it liked the idea of playing with plants. I even asked if it could do rainbow roses and it seemed to find the idea intriguing."
"You…" Amy said, staring at Taylor. "I know you said nothing about that the last time we crossed paths, but the idea has been driving me nuts. How?"
"I assume your snark has been prodding you since I mentioned the idea to it?" Taylor shrugged. "So how is this going to work?"
"You are going to lay back and relax," Riley said. "Amy is going to do her best to monitor you as best she can, aiding me with the healing side of things, as well as being the emergency medical assistance if something goes wrong. Three trusted observers, all female, are watching from the observation area. There are no recording devices beyond our own three phones in here, and I suspect not one of us has turned their cameras on."
"Alright," Taylor said, laying back on the operating table. "Are you going to be knocking me out?"
"I need you awake to ensure I get things hooked back up correctly," Riley apologized. "My methods tend to result in very poor results on unconscious patients. But I have also perfected my device for turning off your pain receptors, so while it will feel odd it won't hurt. With Amy's help it hopefully won't even hurt over the next few days while everything settles."
Taylor gave a little shrug and tried to relax, despite how nervous she was, as Riley and Amy began. On a whim she decided to poke their snarks, not to chat per se, but maybe she could get a running description of what was going on from them as a distraction from them actually doing things?
Hello again you two
[Affirmation] {Affirmation}
[Query]
{Determination}
[Curiosity]
{Excitement}
[Integration] {Integration} <Integration>
Taylor lost her focus on the world around her as things ran through her brain. Biology and technology, enhancements and improvements. More efficient ways to do everything, better structures for the enhancements, improved methods for allowing her to continue to grow despite the changes. Every so often she would contribute an idea, an alternate way to approach something, or a possible issue and the patterns would change.
Nine hours into the projected three hour initial operation the three parahumans in the operating theatre finally finished, though how much of that was being done and how much was running out of energy was unknown. Taylor was back together, looking perfectly normal and healthy, but had fallen asleep. Riley was barely functioning as she cleaned her tools on autopilot, though for the most part the spiderbot assistant she had with her was doing the actual work for her. Amy had collapsed to the floor, leaning against the wall, a goofy but tired grin on her face.
Several female PRT officers came in and assisted Riley and Amy out of the room. A transport stretcher was brought in and Taylor was transferred to it. Taylor's clothing was collected and she was transferred to an observation room until such a time as she woke up. For added 'fun' the entire thing was officially a failure as Riley and Amy had almost immediately gone into what looked like a 'tinker fugue' and had worked together seamlessly instead of Amy monitoring Riley and providing minimal assistance. Even more, Taylor herself seemed to do everything she needed to in the way of moving limbs and other tasks without a single word being spoken, meaning she had been involved as well.
Riley lasted about ten minutes before she had collapsed and was brought to the next room over from Taylor. Amy, on the other hand, was alert enough to give a short report and be picked up by her sister. She did, however, go to bed quite early.
Early Sunday morning Taylor woke up in the hospital, her father and uncle having fallen asleep in chairs off to the side. She was having trouble remembering just why she was here. She also noted that Riley was nearby, if her snark sense was working properly.
Wait, Riley? Wasn't she going to 'upgrade' Taylor yesterday? Taylor vaguely recalled having laid down on the operating table, and then...and then...why did she know what a quadruplex helix DNA analogue looked like? And how in the world did she know it was just before five AM Sunday morning?
Something had gone horribly something. Right or wrong, well, she wasn't quite sure. She found a call button had been placed near her left hand, so she reached over and pressed it. A nurse came in a minute later and saw that Taylor was awake. She came over and offered Taylor a glass of water, which was gladly accepted. The nurse then whispered that she should try and get some more sleep if she didn't need anything else, otherwise her phone was on the table next to her.
Taylor opted for the phone, starting with confirming that her thought of what time it was had been correct, but she still wasn't sure how she knew. She decided to browse through PHO to see if anything of interest was reported as having happened the day before, but not much jumped out at her. Further, she had made it through a dozen pages on PHO before she first realized that she wasn't wearing her glasses.
"What in the world happened?" Taylor mumbled. On a whim she jumped over to the wiki to see if anything on Panacea there might help her figure things out, as she doubted there was enough information on Bonesaw to warrant searching. Only to get her next shock as just after she tapped on the search box Panacea's name typed itself out. A little more focus and she found that she now had a virtual keyboard sitting in the back of her head, one that she hadn't had before. Next to it were various controls for music and voice, volume controls, mute buttons, a dial pad with a call button.
And seemingly above them all was an information block, stating 'civilian phone' with the time, signal bars, and battery life duplicated from the phone in her hands.
"Since when does my brain come with Bluetooth?" Taylor wondered aloud. "No, wait, we added most of that on at the brainstem. I think? After we found my earpiece was still in my ear and got inspired, I believe. Though we did take a couple of attempts to get the audio linkages working."
Taylor was now in an odd state of mind, wanting to freak out but too fascinated to do so. She was remembering more of what had gone on yesterday, including the fifteen attempts to get her phone to pair to her as they adjusted the programming of the biological Bluetooth system that Amy and Riley had cobbled together. A quick mental check showed that she now had Amy's contact information in her phone, which for shits and giggles she double-checked on her phone itself.
Riley had even taken apart the earpiece and figured out how it handled multiple secure connections, then they had built that functionality into the biological system somehow. Taylor shivered as she realized she was probably quite lucky that they had decided to go with Bluetooth and not, say, building her phone into her directly.
Some more contemplation and she found she had a general idea that her strength had been 'maxed out' in some way, her flexibility and endurance were much higher, and she thought that her skeleton and skin were both now much harder to injure or break? How much so on any of these she wasn't sure. It came to her that she wasn't just able to see clearly without glasses, but that she had improved night-vision as well and her hearing was improved when they figured out how to tie the Bluetooth thing into her ears.
If that wasn't enough, she saw and yet didn't see an alert pop up in front of her, indicating that she had received a text message from Amy. Who had apparently woken up early as well and was trying to apologize via text message. For what Taylor wasn't certain as she felt like it was just as much her fault somehow, if not more so than either of the others. Still, she responded, without having looked at her phone, that she was fine if a little weirded out by being a Bluetooth accessory now.
Huh. 'wait, what? what did we do yesterday?' summed up many of Taylor's initial thoughts too, actually.
A few more minutes of texting back and forth with questions and clarifications ensued before Amy had stated that she would swing by the hospital as soon as she could, if only to double-check that Taylor wasn't going to have a mass organ failure or something else horrible.
Taylor set her phone back down on the table next to her and thought for a bit, trying to dredge up memories of what they had done the day before. Eventually she had fallen back asleep, getting another hour or two of rest.
Taylor made her way downstairs and poured herself a bowl of cereal. She poked around on her phone some more, because why not. She most definitely wasn't thinking about what kind of horrific things Riley might be doing to her later, given some of the ideas the two of them had come up with yesterday. Even if most of them wouldn't apply to her.
Uncle Jacob came down, yawning, and made himself some coffee. He then poured himself a bowl of cereal as well and sat across from Taylor, poking at his own phone. Taylor smirked a little at the fact they were both poking at their phones. Then she lost the smirk when she realized he might actually be doing work or something useful compared to her random browsing of the net. Perhaps the comparison wasn't as apt as she had first thought.
Soon they had both eaten and got ready to leave. Danny wasn't going for PRT security and secrecy reasons, officially. The fact he knew everything that was supposed to be kept secret was beside the point. Once they had locked the house up behind them they got into Jacob's rental and headed to the hospital.
When they arrived at the hospital Taylor and Jacob made their way into a secure basement area. Taylor was brought to a room where she changed into a hospital gown, leaving her clothes there. She was told she should keep her phone with her, though. Apparently she may end up using it if she needed to try and communicate while unable to speak? She wasn't sure what the idea was there. Whatever.
She could tell where she was likely going based on where Panacea and Riley were. Still, she was led there by a female PRT officer. She suspected that said officer had no clue what was really going on, though. Once they arrived at what was obviously an operating room with an observation area she was left alone, though she knew that Panacea and Riley were in the next room. In fact, she could feel that even Uncle Jacob was leaving her range, towards what she thought was where the PRT building itself was, leaving just the three parahumans in the building.
Taylor amused herself with a silly little game she found on her phone while she waited for whatever was holding things up. She was very carefully not talking to their snarks, just in case it distracted them from whatever it was they were doing by accident. Ten minutes later Panacea and Riley came in, Riley pulling a cart of tools, and Panacea froze for a moment when she spotted Taylor, but recovered quickly.
"Good morning," Panacea said. "Taylor, was it?"
"Good morning Panacea," Taylor responded. "And good morning Riley."
"Morning Taylor," Riley said, smiling.
"You can call me Amy," Panacea, or rather Amy, said. "Though given what happened to you last week I wonder how you ended up in the know. It may be nice to have someone else to talk to in town about some of this, though."
"Uncle Jacob informed me and my father after I triggered," Taylor responded. Amy raised an eyebrow at that, apparently getting the reference, but opted not to ask too much more. "By the way, have you given any more thought to getting a greenhouse? Your snark would like one."
"You weren't kidding about that?" Amy responded. "Where did the idea even come from?"
"Your snark said it was bored just healing humans," Taylor said, gesturing in Amy's direction. "When I asked it liked the idea of playing with plants. I even asked if it could do rainbow roses and it seemed to find the idea intriguing."
"You…" Amy said, staring at Taylor. "I know you said nothing about that the last time we crossed paths, but the idea has been driving me nuts. How?"
"I assume your snark has been prodding you since I mentioned the idea to it?" Taylor shrugged. "So how is this going to work?"
"You are going to lay back and relax," Riley said. "Amy is going to do her best to monitor you as best she can, aiding me with the healing side of things, as well as being the emergency medical assistance if something goes wrong. Three trusted observers, all female, are watching from the observation area. There are no recording devices beyond our own three phones in here, and I suspect not one of us has turned their cameras on."
"Alright," Taylor said, laying back on the operating table. "Are you going to be knocking me out?"
"I need you awake to ensure I get things hooked back up correctly," Riley apologized. "My methods tend to result in very poor results on unconscious patients. But I have also perfected my device for turning off your pain receptors, so while it will feel odd it won't hurt. With Amy's help it hopefully won't even hurt over the next few days while everything settles."
Taylor gave a little shrug and tried to relax, despite how nervous she was, as Riley and Amy began. On a whim she decided to poke their snarks, not to chat per se, but maybe she could get a running description of what was going on from them as a distraction from them actually doing things?
Hello again you two
[Affirmation] {Affirmation}
[Query]
{Determination}
[Curiosity]
{Excitement}
[Integration] {Integration} <Integration>
Taylor lost her focus on the world around her as things ran through her brain. Biology and technology, enhancements and improvements. More efficient ways to do everything, better structures for the enhancements, improved methods for allowing her to continue to grow despite the changes. Every so often she would contribute an idea, an alternate way to approach something, or a possible issue and the patterns would change.
Nine hours into the projected three hour initial operation the three parahumans in the operating theatre finally finished, though how much of that was being done and how much was running out of energy was unknown. Taylor was back together, looking perfectly normal and healthy, but had fallen asleep. Riley was barely functioning as she cleaned her tools on autopilot, though for the most part the spiderbot assistant she had with her was doing the actual work for her. Amy had collapsed to the floor, leaning against the wall, a goofy but tired grin on her face.
Several female PRT officers came in and assisted Riley and Amy out of the room. A transport stretcher was brought in and Taylor was transferred to it. Taylor's clothing was collected and she was transferred to an observation room until such a time as she woke up. For added 'fun' the entire thing was officially a failure as Riley and Amy had almost immediately gone into what looked like a 'tinker fugue' and had worked together seamlessly instead of Amy monitoring Riley and providing minimal assistance. Even more, Taylor herself seemed to do everything she needed to in the way of moving limbs and other tasks without a single word being spoken, meaning she had been involved as well.
Riley lasted about ten minutes before she had collapsed and was brought to the next room over from Taylor. Amy, on the other hand, was alert enough to give a short report and be picked up by her sister. She did, however, go to bed quite early.
Early Sunday morning Taylor woke up in the hospital, her father and uncle having fallen asleep in chairs off to the side. She was having trouble remembering just why she was here. She also noted that Riley was nearby, if her snark sense was working properly.
Wait, Riley? Wasn't she going to 'upgrade' Taylor yesterday? Taylor vaguely recalled having laid down on the operating table, and then...and then...why did she know what a quadruplex helix DNA analogue looked like? And how in the world did she know it was just before five AM Sunday morning?
Something had gone horribly something. Right or wrong, well, she wasn't quite sure. She found a call button had been placed near her left hand, so she reached over and pressed it. A nurse came in a minute later and saw that Taylor was awake. She came over and offered Taylor a glass of water, which was gladly accepted. The nurse then whispered that she should try and get some more sleep if she didn't need anything else, otherwise her phone was on the table next to her.
Taylor opted for the phone, starting with confirming that her thought of what time it was had been correct, but she still wasn't sure how she knew. She decided to browse through PHO to see if anything of interest was reported as having happened the day before, but not much jumped out at her. Further, she had made it through a dozen pages on PHO before she first realized that she wasn't wearing her glasses.
"What in the world happened?" Taylor mumbled. On a whim she jumped over to the wiki to see if anything on Panacea there might help her figure things out, as she doubted there was enough information on Bonesaw to warrant searching. Only to get her next shock as just after she tapped on the search box Panacea's name typed itself out. A little more focus and she found that she now had a virtual keyboard sitting in the back of her head, one that she hadn't had before. Next to it were various controls for music and voice, volume controls, mute buttons, a dial pad with a call button.
And seemingly above them all was an information block, stating 'civilian phone' with the time, signal bars, and battery life duplicated from the phone in her hands.
"Since when does my brain come with Bluetooth?" Taylor wondered aloud. "No, wait, we added most of that on at the brainstem. I think? After we found my earpiece was still in my ear and got inspired, I believe. Though we did take a couple of attempts to get the audio linkages working."
Taylor was now in an odd state of mind, wanting to freak out but too fascinated to do so. She was remembering more of what had gone on yesterday, including the fifteen attempts to get her phone to pair to her as they adjusted the programming of the biological Bluetooth system that Amy and Riley had cobbled together. A quick mental check showed that she now had Amy's contact information in her phone, which for shits and giggles she double-checked on her phone itself.
Riley had even taken apart the earpiece and figured out how it handled multiple secure connections, then they had built that functionality into the biological system somehow. Taylor shivered as she realized she was probably quite lucky that they had decided to go with Bluetooth and not, say, building her phone into her directly.
Some more contemplation and she found she had a general idea that her strength had been 'maxed out' in some way, her flexibility and endurance were much higher, and she thought that her skeleton and skin were both now much harder to injure or break? How much so on any of these she wasn't sure. It came to her that she wasn't just able to see clearly without glasses, but that she had improved night-vision as well and her hearing was improved when they figured out how to tie the Bluetooth thing into her ears.
If that wasn't enough, she saw and yet didn't see an alert pop up in front of her, indicating that she had received a text message from Amy. Who had apparently woken up early as well and was trying to apologize via text message. For what Taylor wasn't certain as she felt like it was just as much her fault somehow, if not more so than either of the others. Still, she responded, without having looked at her phone, that she was fine if a little weirded out by being a Bluetooth accessory now.
Huh. 'wait, what? what did we do yesterday?' summed up many of Taylor's initial thoughts too, actually.
A few more minutes of texting back and forth with questions and clarifications ensued before Amy had stated that she would swing by the hospital as soon as she could, if only to double-check that Taylor wasn't going to have a mass organ failure or something else horrible.
Taylor set her phone back down on the table next to her and thought for a bit, trying to dredge up memories of what they had done the day before. Eventually she had fallen back asleep, getting another hour or two of rest.
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Interlude: Panacea
Amy shook her head as she left Miss Hebert's room. A greenhouse, really? To keep her snark from getting bored?
She stopped to make the 'this person has triggered and has been given the documentation they need' markings on the paperwork. To those not in the know it probably looked like a mistake that hadn't been cleared off properly, though. Which, to be fair, probably meant that a dozen different groups who shouldn't be in the know could go through hospital paperwork all over the country and find out who had been found to be a parahuman. But that wasn't her problem.
A couple hours and a couple dozen more patients later she called Vicky for a ride home.
A couple of days later she had been informed that there were no patients in need of her care (which meant that there were likely patients that wanted her care, but that didn't actually warrant her visiting). She opted to join Vicky and Dean on the Boardwalk for a bit as a result.
"So what is up with you?" Vicky asked, poking Amy. "For the past few days you have been slightly out of it."
Amy looked over at Vicky and decided that she was unlikely to give up. Even Dean looked interested.
"Someone said some things that made very little sense to me recently," Amy finally admitted. "I think some of it was their concussion talking, honestly. But it got stuck in my head anyway."
"Really?" Vicky said, a look of disbelief on her face. "What could they have possibly said that would stick with you?"
"That I needed to buy a greenhouse so my snark and I could play with the plants to keep from being bored," Amy deadpanned back.
Vicky and Dean looked at her, Vicky had an unreadable expression and Dean looked like he wanted to laugh. No, wait, there was a slight giggle.
"Well, you know," Vicky finally said, a grin slipping by her apparent attempt to control her expression. "You can be pretty snarky at times."
And that did it, Dean was now outright laughing. Amy had to smirk a bit herself, though.
Two clothing stores, a pretzel stand, another clothing store, and a shoe store later the group had grown and was taking a break. Dennis had joined them at the pretzel stand, sticking around for the shoe store because he actually needed new sneakers, and Carlos had joined them as they left the shoe store.
As it was, they were sitting outside of a florist, and Amy couldn't keep her attention on the conversation. For some reason she was entranced by the various flowers, especially the roses.
"Earth to Amy," Vicky said, tapping Amy on the forehead. "Come in Amy."
"Wha?" Amy said, shaking her head. "Sorry, I spaced out there."
"Yea, we noticed," Dennis said. "Kind of curious what had your attention."
"Er," Amy said, blushing a bit. "Not sure why, but I couldn't stop thinking about the flowers."
"The flowers?" Carlos asked, looking like that didn't make a lot of sense. "Why the flowers?"
"Not really sure," Amy said, turning back and looking at the roses. "I keep imagining things like the roses having rainbow-colored petals in various patterns."
"That would be interesting," Dean admitted. "Any idea where the idea came from?"
"Not really," Amy admitted. "But I also keep imagining having the oddly-colored flowers in a greenhouse, so maybe it is just my mind running away with that comment."
Of course, Dennis and Carlos hadn't heard that story, and both cracked up when they heard about Vicky's comment about Amy being snarky. Great, Dennis was probably going to run with that for weeks.
Amy entered the operating room with Riley, having just finished getting an explanation about what was planned from the younger girl. Apparently a recent trigger was aware of the truth about the Slaughterhouse Nine, somehow, and was getting upgraded to be less squishy. For all Amy knew the new cape was going to be joining the nine due to a problem with the mentality their power imposed, that hadn't been covered.
Amy looked over at the girl sitting on the operating table and froze for a second. Taylor, was it? She was the recent trigger? She quickly pushed down her surprise and got the basic story. Being related to Jack Slash would explain the 'in the know' part, though.
It wasn't long before they were ready to get started. Riley had grabbed the pain inhibitor, Amy herself was prepared to monitor everything. And then the world exploded into a mass of ideas and possibilities, of technology and biology and how to do things with both that she had never even considered before.
Amy was washed away, only barely aware of what was going on, of what she was doing.
Wow, what had she done last night, er, or was it yesterday? She blearily grabbed her phone from where she had left it next to her bed and checked the time. Very early Sunday? What happened to…
Amy suddenly came fully awake. What had they done to poor Taylor yesterday? How could she have let herself go like that? How could she ever make it up to her?
She quickly fired off a text message to Taylor (when did she get Taylor's number?) trying to apologize for what had happened, whatever it was. It was only after she had sent the message that she realized that Taylor may no longer be able to use a phone. She hoped that wasn't something that had gone wrong.
It wasn't long before Taylor texted back. Amy stared at the message. "I'm fine, I think I am in one piece, but a bit weirded out that I am now a Bluetooth accessory." What? No, seriously, WHAT?
She stopped to make the 'this person has triggered and has been given the documentation they need' markings on the paperwork. To those not in the know it probably looked like a mistake that hadn't been cleared off properly, though. Which, to be fair, probably meant that a dozen different groups who shouldn't be in the know could go through hospital paperwork all over the country and find out who had been found to be a parahuman. But that wasn't her problem.
A couple hours and a couple dozen more patients later she called Vicky for a ride home.
A couple of days later she had been informed that there were no patients in need of her care (which meant that there were likely patients that wanted her care, but that didn't actually warrant her visiting). She opted to join Vicky and Dean on the Boardwalk for a bit as a result.
"So what is up with you?" Vicky asked, poking Amy. "For the past few days you have been slightly out of it."
Amy looked over at Vicky and decided that she was unlikely to give up. Even Dean looked interested.
"Someone said some things that made very little sense to me recently," Amy finally admitted. "I think some of it was their concussion talking, honestly. But it got stuck in my head anyway."
"Really?" Vicky said, a look of disbelief on her face. "What could they have possibly said that would stick with you?"
"That I needed to buy a greenhouse so my snark and I could play with the plants to keep from being bored," Amy deadpanned back.
Vicky and Dean looked at her, Vicky had an unreadable expression and Dean looked like he wanted to laugh. No, wait, there was a slight giggle.
"Well, you know," Vicky finally said, a grin slipping by her apparent attempt to control her expression. "You can be pretty snarky at times."
And that did it, Dean was now outright laughing. Amy had to smirk a bit herself, though.
Two clothing stores, a pretzel stand, another clothing store, and a shoe store later the group had grown and was taking a break. Dennis had joined them at the pretzel stand, sticking around for the shoe store because he actually needed new sneakers, and Carlos had joined them as they left the shoe store.
As it was, they were sitting outside of a florist, and Amy couldn't keep her attention on the conversation. For some reason she was entranced by the various flowers, especially the roses.
"Earth to Amy," Vicky said, tapping Amy on the forehead. "Come in Amy."
"Wha?" Amy said, shaking her head. "Sorry, I spaced out there."
"Yea, we noticed," Dennis said. "Kind of curious what had your attention."
"Er," Amy said, blushing a bit. "Not sure why, but I couldn't stop thinking about the flowers."
"The flowers?" Carlos asked, looking like that didn't make a lot of sense. "Why the flowers?"
"Not really sure," Amy said, turning back and looking at the roses. "I keep imagining things like the roses having rainbow-colored petals in various patterns."
"That would be interesting," Dean admitted. "Any idea where the idea came from?"
"Not really," Amy admitted. "But I also keep imagining having the oddly-colored flowers in a greenhouse, so maybe it is just my mind running away with that comment."
Of course, Dennis and Carlos hadn't heard that story, and both cracked up when they heard about Vicky's comment about Amy being snarky. Great, Dennis was probably going to run with that for weeks.
Amy entered the operating room with Riley, having just finished getting an explanation about what was planned from the younger girl. Apparently a recent trigger was aware of the truth about the Slaughterhouse Nine, somehow, and was getting upgraded to be less squishy. For all Amy knew the new cape was going to be joining the nine due to a problem with the mentality their power imposed, that hadn't been covered.
Amy looked over at the girl sitting on the operating table and froze for a second. Taylor, was it? She was the recent trigger? She quickly pushed down her surprise and got the basic story. Being related to Jack Slash would explain the 'in the know' part, though.
It wasn't long before they were ready to get started. Riley had grabbed the pain inhibitor, Amy herself was prepared to monitor everything. And then the world exploded into a mass of ideas and possibilities, of technology and biology and how to do things with both that she had never even considered before.
Amy was washed away, only barely aware of what was going on, of what she was doing.
Wow, what had she done last night, er, or was it yesterday? She blearily grabbed her phone from where she had left it next to her bed and checked the time. Very early Sunday? What happened to…
Amy suddenly came fully awake. What had they done to poor Taylor yesterday? How could she have let herself go like that? How could she ever make it up to her?
She quickly fired off a text message to Taylor (when did she get Taylor's number?) trying to apologize for what had happened, whatever it was. It was only after she had sent the message that she realized that Taylor may no longer be able to use a phone. She hoped that wasn't something that had gone wrong.
It wasn't long before Taylor texted back. Amy stared at the message. "I'm fine, I think I am in one piece, but a bit weirded out that I am now a Bluetooth accessory." What? No, seriously, WHAT?
Chapter 6
Taylor woke up to the sight of the hospital ceiling for the second time that morning. It took her a minute to realize that a text message from Amy had woken her up. Apparently by poking her brain through her nice fancy new Bluetooth organ-thingy and not through her phone making noise. Still, it looked like Amy had just arrived and would be down as soon as she could clear the security checkpoints.
Taylor looked around the room to find that, as her snark sense had told her, Uncle Jacob was not currently in the room. He appeared to be next door with Riley instead. Her father was drinking from a coffee mug and had not noticed her head moving yet.
"Morning Dad," Taylor said just after Danny had put the coffee mug down, causing him to flinch. "Amy will be down shortly to check up on me."
"Er," Danny said. "Morning, and how do you know that?"
"She just sent me a text message," Taylor responded, grinning internally. Just because she was a little freaked out at 'what had they done!?!?!?' didn't mean she couldn't have fun with it.
"As much as I obviously could miss your head moving a little," Danny said, giving Taylor a look. "I doubt I would have missed you pick up your phone, check your messages, and then put the phone back down. Next to my coffee, that I was drinking."
"Yea," Taylor said. "Apparently at some point yesterday I was turned into a Bluetooth accessory, or had one installed in my head, or something like that. I think it was fifteen attempts before I could pair with the phone. Also, since her text message woke me up I have been following her progress with my snark sense."
Danny sat there, looking at Taylor, before sighing. "I should have thought that instead of asking how you knew in the first place."
"Morning Taylor," Jacob said as he came into the room, Riley trailing behind him. Riley tried to say something, but yawned instead.
"Where's Amanda?" Taylor asked, curious. Her father was here, why wouldn't Riley's mother be?
"Riley does this kind of thing frequently," Jacob admitted, getting a glare from Riley. "Not quite in this way, but often enough that Amanda has stopped worrying about her when it happens so long as Riley wasn't working on herself."
"The infamous tinker fugue," Danny smirked. "Though apparently you somehow roped yourself and another non-tinker into the fugue."
"Honestly I think Amy is as much as a tinker as anyone else on that front," Taylor said, timing her comment for Amy coming into the room. "Speaking of which, morning Amy."
"Good morning Taylor," Amy said, walking over and poking Taylor in the arm. "Well, your organs aren't falling apart, so that is a good thing. Now then, your skeleton has been strengthened...wow, nanotubes? Throughout the skin too? And that is a surprisingly efficient improvement on the muscles. I think your joints are a lot less rigid now, if that is what it looks like in them. Huh, what is that thing attached to the base of your skull?"
"I think that is my Bluetooth module," Taylor said. Riley perked up at that.
"That wasn't my imagination?" Riley said, bouncing over. "We actually got an organic Bluetooth module working?" Taylor's phone lit up at that, and a moment later Riley's phone dinged. Riley pulled her phone out and read the message aloud. "Yes, we did. Weird as hell though."
"That was interesting to watch," Amy said, her eyes focused on something nobody else could see. "No idea how it works. Did we program it with a quadruplex helix structure for information storage?"
"I think some of that also handles the information processing," Taylor said. "But most of that is vague and fuzzy, like I watched a documentary on it while half asleep."
"No, I think most of the processing is through what I think is carbon nanotube semiconductors. And I think it uses your skin as an antenna," Amy continued. "No idea what it is capable of or how to duplicate it, though it looks to be loosely tied into multiple parts of your head, brain and otherwise?"
"I know I can see, without my eyes mind you, the phone status and messages," Taylor replied. "Plus I appear to be able to make and receive calls, listen to and control music and other playback, plus the virtual keyboard in my brain and a couple of other things. I have vague recollections of testing all of those, and I think my call logs show several calls to you and Riley yesterday when we would have been occupied with all of this. I know that you didn't have my number nor did I have yours yesterday morning."
Amy removed her finger from Taylor's arm, shaking her head as if to clear it. "My power is very happy, confused at half of what we did, and impressed that we apparently got your body to maintain all of the modifications for you, though I did check and can tell you that should you have any your kids won't have the upgrades. So congratulations, you are an artificial brute and I have no idea how to classify the organic Bluetooth module."
"I suspect you need to eat a lot more," Riley piped up. "Everyone I have upgraded in the past has, anyway."
"There is that," Amy admitted. "But that is to be expected, and I think it is much less than it might otherwise have been unless you are using the enhanced strength or endurance a lot."
"So," Danny said, looking around the room. "Am I the only one that still wants to know what the hell happened yesterday?"
Taylor, Amy, and Riley all blushed a bit at that, then looked at each other. Finally Taylor sighed.
"Right as they were about to begin I connected to both of their snarks," Taylor said. "At the same time, in a single 'channel'. A conference call, if you will. Which meant that not only could I talk to each of their snarks…"
"But they could talk to each other as well," Jacob finished. "A bio-tinker and a bio-striker having their powers able to directly communicate right as they were focusing on an operation. Wow. I can't wait for something similar to happen again so it can be officially noted."
"What do you mean by that?" Riley asked. "Why wouldn't the PRT note that this happened?"
"Because this was off the books," Jacob replied. "Had it worked out flawlessly the only record would have been a report signed off by Panacea that there were no problems. That, obviously, isn't going to happen as there were problems. Still, Amy, would you be willing to fill out a standard PRT health check for Taylor? She could use it to bypass some questions when she is trying to join the Wards."
"I will be glad to," Amy said, looking at Taylor. "Whatever happened it is like a weight was lifted from me that I didn't know was there. I think my power is content?"
"I told you," Taylor interrupted. "Get a greenhouse, play with the plants, and you and your snark will be happier."
"I...think I may believe you now," Amy admitted. "I thought it was crazy-talk before, though, sorry. And I have no idea how to explain it to Carol."
"Well, we can think on it," Jacob said. "For the time being I think we should ensure that everyone is ok, fill out the paperwork we are going to fill out, and get out of here. Unless anyone wants to hang around the hospital all day?"
They had finished everything in twenty minutes and were out of the building in twenty-five.
"So now that we have escaped the dreaded hospital of doom," Riley said, looking around as she pulled on a baseball cap. "What is there to do around here? I'm not leaving till tomorrow morning, so I got nothing to do today."
"Wander the boardwalk and hope no gang idiots decide to jump you?" Amy offered. "Really, most of the time I am dragged out and about with Vicky, and she mostly prefers shopping."
"Wonder what people will think if they see you running around with other people," Jacob mused. "Unless we get you a hat as well. You would be amazed at how well that works, since you aren't in costume."
"Add a light pair of sunglasses," Riley added. "Not really dark ones, just dark enough to obviously be sunglasses. Too dark and you are obviously hiding something and people start trying to figure out what."
A basic plan to keep people from paying attention to Amy in hand they quickly swung by a store to put it in action. Amy and Taylor both picked out sun hats and all three girls got pairs of matching sunglasses.
Thus 'disguised' they made their way down to the boardwalk itself and found that early on a Sunday morning in early January was more boring than usual there. In fact, a number of shops weren't even open until noon. They did, however, find that breakfast was being served at a cafe and, not having eaten in the hospital (or since the morning of the day before in general for Taylor and Riley) they decided to stop in.
The cafe was not busy, and was a tad on the expensive side, but everything was pretty good. For a number of reasons the smalltalk was sparse and covered nothing of importance, one of them being that talking was not eating. After the group of five had consumed enough for nearly ten (the employees being surprised that the three girls each ate as much or more than the adult men) they left, to find that the boardwalk was a bit busier.
They wandered a bit more, ending up in an Arcade for an hour or so, browsed some of the open shops that Amy didn't usually get to see with Vicky, and showed Amy and Riley the out of the way shop that Danny, Jacob, and Taylor had gone to. Amy and Riley each picked up a collapsible baton after Taylor had mentioned hers, figuring that defense was always a good idea and that they wouldn't always have their powers as an option.
A little before noon Amy got a text message from her sister. "Vicky wants to know if I want to join her and Dean for lunch," Amy relayed. "Shall I see if the rest of you can tag along?"
"Why not," Jacob said after a glance at Danny. "We don't have any other plans yet."
A quick back and forth with Vicky and Amy led the group towards a small restaurant just off of the boardwalk proper. As they approached Taylor noticed that they were heading towards two unfamiliar snarks. While she could ignore the snarks that didn't get close, and had been all morning with a few that were also wandering around, these would be harder to do so with. They were also right next to each other, was Dean a parahuman?
"There they are," Amy said as she pointed. They had just come around the last corner before they reached the restaurant and they now had line of sight to the few people already there. Two of them were Vicky, floating a foot in the air, and, presumably, Dean. Unfortunately that was also when things started to go wrong.
Taylor stopped dead in the street as something went off in her head.
[Assertion]
No.
"Taylor?" Danny tried to get her attention. The others had also stopped.
[Determination. Assertion.]
I said no. I will not adore her.
Amy poked Taylor's exposed hand for a quick diagnostic. "Her gemma is going nuts and her heart rate is increasing," was whispered to the others after a moment. "It looks like a panic attack?"
[Determination. ASSERTION.]
I said NO. STOP IT.
"What do you think is going wrong?" Danny finally asked.
"Maybe something just entered her range and is causing problems?" Riley guessed. "Given that her gemma is involved."
[ASSERTION.]
I SAID NO. <Additional Connections Established> STOP IT <Additional Connections Established>
By now the entire group was looking worried but none of them knew what to do. Without more information moving Taylor could just bring her closer to what was causing the problem.
Unnoticed by them, Vicky was also starting to look worried. She was looking around like something was wrong.
[ASSERTION. ASSERTION. ASSERTION.]
I <Additional Connections Established> Said <Additional Connections Established> Stop <Error: Connection Failed: Target has insufficient resources> IT!
Unnoticed by Taylor's group, Vicky suddenly fell to the ground. Unable to keep her balance she tried to latch onto a fence post, cutting her hand in the process.
[acquiescence]
Good. And don't do it again.
<Additional Connections Closed>
At this point Taylor fell to her knees, suddenly gasping for breath. Amy noticed that Taylor's gemma was returning to what she thought was normal and Taylor's heart rate was starting to drop as well.
"Taylor," Danny said, kneeling in front of her. "Kiddo. What happened?"
"Amy," Taylor gasped. "I'm sorry, but I am not sure I like your sister's snark."
"What?" Amy barely held herself from yelling as she spun around. She spotted Vicky over at the restaurant, sitting on the ground, staring at a bloody hand. "What the hell?"
"I told it no," Taylor finally continued after catching her breath. "It kept trying to make me adore her. I kept telling it to stop, screamed at it to stop, and finally it did. But I do not like that snark."
The other parahumans in the group shared some looks, and collectively decided this should probably not be talked about in the open. They helped Taylor up and, after making sure everything was ok for now, finished heading over to the restaurant.
"Vicky, what happened to you?" Amy asked Vicky as they came up to the two. "How did you get hurt?"
"Wha?" Vicky was visibly startled as she looked up. "Oh, hi Ames, nice hat, didn't recognize you at first."
"Yes yes," Amy said, reaching down to poke Vicky. "How did you get hurt?"
"I'm not sure what happened," Vicky admitted. "All of a sudden I got an odd feeling, like something wasn't quite right. It got worse, and then all of a sudden my power cut out. I fell from where I was floating and grabbed something?"
"The fence post," Dean said, pointing at the metal fence post they were next to. An obvious rough point had a small blood smear on it. "I was also suddenly able to sense her feelings. Actually, I still can, normally her aura is blocking that."
"Whatever happened I feel like my powers are all back," Vicky added. "But my aura is, um, reluctant to turn on? Which is odd, normally I have to really focus to keep it off."
Amy healed Vicky up without problem, but knew that suspicions on what had happened could not be voiced here. Basic introductions were made across the group, followed by a largely silent lunch.
After lunch was over Vicky and Dean went back on their own way, resuming their 'Sunday date'. Amy opted not to join them, not wanting to 'intrude on their time'. Or so she claimed. Instead the group went back to the hospital, where Jacob's rental was parked.
"Alright," Amy said, once they were all in the rental, the three girls in the backseat. "Do we know precisely what happened with Taylor and Vicky?"
"I suspect," Jacob said, before anyone else got started. "That your sister's well-known aura attempted to ensnare Taylor. Taylor's own power detected that and Taylor disagreed. But I am not sure what happened after that."
"I think I connected to her snark," Taylor said, quietly. "Over and over and over again, telling it to stop each time, until there was nothing left over for her snark to do what it normally did. Then, and only then, when I could make no more connections because her snark had nothing left to connect to, did it agree to stop."
"I bet that is when her powers stopped working," Riley said after a moment. "You literally forced her power offline, demanded so much of it that it couldn't do anything but listen to you."
"Had she been higher in the air she might have been seriously injured," Danny added. "We are lucky she wasn't, but you may need to find a way to restrain yourself if that happens again."
"I think she may have permanently changed Vicky's power," Amy finally said. "Her aura's behavior changing from 'on unless she forces it off' to 'off and reluctant to turn on' is honestly worrying."
"It may only do that around me," Taylor volunteered. "If it is more afraid of annoying me with it. Or perhaps it has learned that blasting everyone, all the time, can be a bad thing. I guess we will have to wait and see."
"Well, I suggest we drop Riley and Amy off," Jacob said. "I know where Riley's hotel is, where would you like to be dropped off Amy?"
After they dropped Riley and Amy off, Amy providing directions to her home, the remaining three made their way back to the Hebert household. Heading in the three made their way to the living room and collapsed into various seats.
"Congratulations," Jacob finally said, looking at Taylor. "I do believe that when this ability of yours comes out you will get an official boost to your likely trump rating. Not only did you shut Victoria's power down on her you may have permanently changed an aspect of it."
Taylor just dropped her head onto the coffee table.
It was only as she got ready for bed that night that Taylor realized they had not, in fact, tested any of her 'upgrades'. She only knew that the fixed and improved eyesight worked by virtue of not needing her glasses and not needing to turn on her bedroom light. The Bluetooth module obviously worked. But she hadn't noticed any extra strength, and wasn't sure how to test her new durability.
She made note to say something about that in the morning, then crawled into bed.
Taylor looked around the room to find that, as her snark sense had told her, Uncle Jacob was not currently in the room. He appeared to be next door with Riley instead. Her father was drinking from a coffee mug and had not noticed her head moving yet.
"Morning Dad," Taylor said just after Danny had put the coffee mug down, causing him to flinch. "Amy will be down shortly to check up on me."
"Er," Danny said. "Morning, and how do you know that?"
"She just sent me a text message," Taylor responded, grinning internally. Just because she was a little freaked out at 'what had they done!?!?!?' didn't mean she couldn't have fun with it.
"As much as I obviously could miss your head moving a little," Danny said, giving Taylor a look. "I doubt I would have missed you pick up your phone, check your messages, and then put the phone back down. Next to my coffee, that I was drinking."
"Yea," Taylor said. "Apparently at some point yesterday I was turned into a Bluetooth accessory, or had one installed in my head, or something like that. I think it was fifteen attempts before I could pair with the phone. Also, since her text message woke me up I have been following her progress with my snark sense."
Danny sat there, looking at Taylor, before sighing. "I should have thought that instead of asking how you knew in the first place."
"Morning Taylor," Jacob said as he came into the room, Riley trailing behind him. Riley tried to say something, but yawned instead.
"Where's Amanda?" Taylor asked, curious. Her father was here, why wouldn't Riley's mother be?
"Riley does this kind of thing frequently," Jacob admitted, getting a glare from Riley. "Not quite in this way, but often enough that Amanda has stopped worrying about her when it happens so long as Riley wasn't working on herself."
"The infamous tinker fugue," Danny smirked. "Though apparently you somehow roped yourself and another non-tinker into the fugue."
"Honestly I think Amy is as much as a tinker as anyone else on that front," Taylor said, timing her comment for Amy coming into the room. "Speaking of which, morning Amy."
"Good morning Taylor," Amy said, walking over and poking Taylor in the arm. "Well, your organs aren't falling apart, so that is a good thing. Now then, your skeleton has been strengthened...wow, nanotubes? Throughout the skin too? And that is a surprisingly efficient improvement on the muscles. I think your joints are a lot less rigid now, if that is what it looks like in them. Huh, what is that thing attached to the base of your skull?"
"I think that is my Bluetooth module," Taylor said. Riley perked up at that.
"That wasn't my imagination?" Riley said, bouncing over. "We actually got an organic Bluetooth module working?" Taylor's phone lit up at that, and a moment later Riley's phone dinged. Riley pulled her phone out and read the message aloud. "Yes, we did. Weird as hell though."
"That was interesting to watch," Amy said, her eyes focused on something nobody else could see. "No idea how it works. Did we program it with a quadruplex helix structure for information storage?"
"I think some of that also handles the information processing," Taylor said. "But most of that is vague and fuzzy, like I watched a documentary on it while half asleep."
"No, I think most of the processing is through what I think is carbon nanotube semiconductors. And I think it uses your skin as an antenna," Amy continued. "No idea what it is capable of or how to duplicate it, though it looks to be loosely tied into multiple parts of your head, brain and otherwise?"
"I know I can see, without my eyes mind you, the phone status and messages," Taylor replied. "Plus I appear to be able to make and receive calls, listen to and control music and other playback, plus the virtual keyboard in my brain and a couple of other things. I have vague recollections of testing all of those, and I think my call logs show several calls to you and Riley yesterday when we would have been occupied with all of this. I know that you didn't have my number nor did I have yours yesterday morning."
Amy removed her finger from Taylor's arm, shaking her head as if to clear it. "My power is very happy, confused at half of what we did, and impressed that we apparently got your body to maintain all of the modifications for you, though I did check and can tell you that should you have any your kids won't have the upgrades. So congratulations, you are an artificial brute and I have no idea how to classify the organic Bluetooth module."
"I suspect you need to eat a lot more," Riley piped up. "Everyone I have upgraded in the past has, anyway."
"There is that," Amy admitted. "But that is to be expected, and I think it is much less than it might otherwise have been unless you are using the enhanced strength or endurance a lot."
"So," Danny said, looking around the room. "Am I the only one that still wants to know what the hell happened yesterday?"
Taylor, Amy, and Riley all blushed a bit at that, then looked at each other. Finally Taylor sighed.
"Right as they were about to begin I connected to both of their snarks," Taylor said. "At the same time, in a single 'channel'. A conference call, if you will. Which meant that not only could I talk to each of their snarks…"
"But they could talk to each other as well," Jacob finished. "A bio-tinker and a bio-striker having their powers able to directly communicate right as they were focusing on an operation. Wow. I can't wait for something similar to happen again so it can be officially noted."
"What do you mean by that?" Riley asked. "Why wouldn't the PRT note that this happened?"
"Because this was off the books," Jacob replied. "Had it worked out flawlessly the only record would have been a report signed off by Panacea that there were no problems. That, obviously, isn't going to happen as there were problems. Still, Amy, would you be willing to fill out a standard PRT health check for Taylor? She could use it to bypass some questions when she is trying to join the Wards."
"I will be glad to," Amy said, looking at Taylor. "Whatever happened it is like a weight was lifted from me that I didn't know was there. I think my power is content?"
"I told you," Taylor interrupted. "Get a greenhouse, play with the plants, and you and your snark will be happier."
"I...think I may believe you now," Amy admitted. "I thought it was crazy-talk before, though, sorry. And I have no idea how to explain it to Carol."
"Well, we can think on it," Jacob said. "For the time being I think we should ensure that everyone is ok, fill out the paperwork we are going to fill out, and get out of here. Unless anyone wants to hang around the hospital all day?"
They had finished everything in twenty minutes and were out of the building in twenty-five.
"So now that we have escaped the dreaded hospital of doom," Riley said, looking around as she pulled on a baseball cap. "What is there to do around here? I'm not leaving till tomorrow morning, so I got nothing to do today."
"Wander the boardwalk and hope no gang idiots decide to jump you?" Amy offered. "Really, most of the time I am dragged out and about with Vicky, and she mostly prefers shopping."
"Wonder what people will think if they see you running around with other people," Jacob mused. "Unless we get you a hat as well. You would be amazed at how well that works, since you aren't in costume."
"Add a light pair of sunglasses," Riley added. "Not really dark ones, just dark enough to obviously be sunglasses. Too dark and you are obviously hiding something and people start trying to figure out what."
A basic plan to keep people from paying attention to Amy in hand they quickly swung by a store to put it in action. Amy and Taylor both picked out sun hats and all three girls got pairs of matching sunglasses.
Thus 'disguised' they made their way down to the boardwalk itself and found that early on a Sunday morning in early January was more boring than usual there. In fact, a number of shops weren't even open until noon. They did, however, find that breakfast was being served at a cafe and, not having eaten in the hospital (or since the morning of the day before in general for Taylor and Riley) they decided to stop in.
The cafe was not busy, and was a tad on the expensive side, but everything was pretty good. For a number of reasons the smalltalk was sparse and covered nothing of importance, one of them being that talking was not eating. After the group of five had consumed enough for nearly ten (the employees being surprised that the three girls each ate as much or more than the adult men) they left, to find that the boardwalk was a bit busier.
They wandered a bit more, ending up in an Arcade for an hour or so, browsed some of the open shops that Amy didn't usually get to see with Vicky, and showed Amy and Riley the out of the way shop that Danny, Jacob, and Taylor had gone to. Amy and Riley each picked up a collapsible baton after Taylor had mentioned hers, figuring that defense was always a good idea and that they wouldn't always have their powers as an option.
A little before noon Amy got a text message from her sister. "Vicky wants to know if I want to join her and Dean for lunch," Amy relayed. "Shall I see if the rest of you can tag along?"
"Why not," Jacob said after a glance at Danny. "We don't have any other plans yet."
A quick back and forth with Vicky and Amy led the group towards a small restaurant just off of the boardwalk proper. As they approached Taylor noticed that they were heading towards two unfamiliar snarks. While she could ignore the snarks that didn't get close, and had been all morning with a few that were also wandering around, these would be harder to do so with. They were also right next to each other, was Dean a parahuman?
"There they are," Amy said as she pointed. They had just come around the last corner before they reached the restaurant and they now had line of sight to the few people already there. Two of them were Vicky, floating a foot in the air, and, presumably, Dean. Unfortunately that was also when things started to go wrong.
Taylor stopped dead in the street as something went off in her head.
[Assertion]
No.
"Taylor?" Danny tried to get her attention. The others had also stopped.
[Determination. Assertion.]
I said no. I will not adore her.
Amy poked Taylor's exposed hand for a quick diagnostic. "Her gemma is going nuts and her heart rate is increasing," was whispered to the others after a moment. "It looks like a panic attack?"
[Determination. ASSERTION.]
I said NO. STOP IT.
"What do you think is going wrong?" Danny finally asked.
"Maybe something just entered her range and is causing problems?" Riley guessed. "Given that her gemma is involved."
[ASSERTION.]
I SAID NO. <Additional Connections Established> STOP IT <Additional Connections Established>
By now the entire group was looking worried but none of them knew what to do. Without more information moving Taylor could just bring her closer to what was causing the problem.
Unnoticed by them, Vicky was also starting to look worried. She was looking around like something was wrong.
[ASSERTION. ASSERTION. ASSERTION.]
I <Additional Connections Established> Said <Additional Connections Established> Stop <Error: Connection Failed: Target has insufficient resources> IT!
Unnoticed by Taylor's group, Vicky suddenly fell to the ground. Unable to keep her balance she tried to latch onto a fence post, cutting her hand in the process.
[acquiescence]
Good. And don't do it again.
<Additional Connections Closed>
At this point Taylor fell to her knees, suddenly gasping for breath. Amy noticed that Taylor's gemma was returning to what she thought was normal and Taylor's heart rate was starting to drop as well.
"Taylor," Danny said, kneeling in front of her. "Kiddo. What happened?"
"Amy," Taylor gasped. "I'm sorry, but I am not sure I like your sister's snark."
"What?" Amy barely held herself from yelling as she spun around. She spotted Vicky over at the restaurant, sitting on the ground, staring at a bloody hand. "What the hell?"
"I told it no," Taylor finally continued after catching her breath. "It kept trying to make me adore her. I kept telling it to stop, screamed at it to stop, and finally it did. But I do not like that snark."
The other parahumans in the group shared some looks, and collectively decided this should probably not be talked about in the open. They helped Taylor up and, after making sure everything was ok for now, finished heading over to the restaurant.
"Vicky, what happened to you?" Amy asked Vicky as they came up to the two. "How did you get hurt?"
"Wha?" Vicky was visibly startled as she looked up. "Oh, hi Ames, nice hat, didn't recognize you at first."
"Yes yes," Amy said, reaching down to poke Vicky. "How did you get hurt?"
"I'm not sure what happened," Vicky admitted. "All of a sudden I got an odd feeling, like something wasn't quite right. It got worse, and then all of a sudden my power cut out. I fell from where I was floating and grabbed something?"
"The fence post," Dean said, pointing at the metal fence post they were next to. An obvious rough point had a small blood smear on it. "I was also suddenly able to sense her feelings. Actually, I still can, normally her aura is blocking that."
"Whatever happened I feel like my powers are all back," Vicky added. "But my aura is, um, reluctant to turn on? Which is odd, normally I have to really focus to keep it off."
Amy healed Vicky up without problem, but knew that suspicions on what had happened could not be voiced here. Basic introductions were made across the group, followed by a largely silent lunch.
After lunch was over Vicky and Dean went back on their own way, resuming their 'Sunday date'. Amy opted not to join them, not wanting to 'intrude on their time'. Or so she claimed. Instead the group went back to the hospital, where Jacob's rental was parked.
"Alright," Amy said, once they were all in the rental, the three girls in the backseat. "Do we know precisely what happened with Taylor and Vicky?"
"I suspect," Jacob said, before anyone else got started. "That your sister's well-known aura attempted to ensnare Taylor. Taylor's own power detected that and Taylor disagreed. But I am not sure what happened after that."
"I think I connected to her snark," Taylor said, quietly. "Over and over and over again, telling it to stop each time, until there was nothing left over for her snark to do what it normally did. Then, and only then, when I could make no more connections because her snark had nothing left to connect to, did it agree to stop."
"I bet that is when her powers stopped working," Riley said after a moment. "You literally forced her power offline, demanded so much of it that it couldn't do anything but listen to you."
"Had she been higher in the air she might have been seriously injured," Danny added. "We are lucky she wasn't, but you may need to find a way to restrain yourself if that happens again."
"I think she may have permanently changed Vicky's power," Amy finally said. "Her aura's behavior changing from 'on unless she forces it off' to 'off and reluctant to turn on' is honestly worrying."
"It may only do that around me," Taylor volunteered. "If it is more afraid of annoying me with it. Or perhaps it has learned that blasting everyone, all the time, can be a bad thing. I guess we will have to wait and see."
"Well, I suggest we drop Riley and Amy off," Jacob said. "I know where Riley's hotel is, where would you like to be dropped off Amy?"
After they dropped Riley and Amy off, Amy providing directions to her home, the remaining three made their way back to the Hebert household. Heading in the three made their way to the living room and collapsed into various seats.
"Congratulations," Jacob finally said, looking at Taylor. "I do believe that when this ability of yours comes out you will get an official boost to your likely trump rating. Not only did you shut Victoria's power down on her you may have permanently changed an aspect of it."
Taylor just dropped her head onto the coffee table.
It was only as she got ready for bed that night that Taylor realized they had not, in fact, tested any of her 'upgrades'. She only knew that the fixed and improved eyesight worked by virtue of not needing her glasses and not needing to turn on her bedroom light. The Bluetooth module obviously worked. But she hadn't noticed any extra strength, and wasn't sure how to test her new durability.
She made note to say something about that in the morning, then crawled into bed.
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Chapter 7
Taylor woke up the next morning to a text message, this time from Riley, poking her brain. She was going to have to do something about that. She mentally pulled up the message.
"BTW, since we didn't talk about it yesterday, the PRT watchers told me we tested your upgrades. They worked fine."
Well, that was good to know. She still wanted to test some of them for herself, though. She sent a thanks in reply anyway, then started poking around her mental Bluetooth interface for a don't wake me up button. Which was more difficult than it seemed because her interface wasn't something she could look at and just open everything.
It took her nearly an hour, but she finally found an option tied to the pairing. Apparently she had a power-saving sleep mode? And it would activate when she was actually asleep, she hoped that meant she would just disconnect from the phone when she was asleep. She ensured that it was enabled, re-named the phone to 'personal' instead of 'civilian', and then poked around some more just in case she missed something. Finally she opened her eyes.
Huh, she had been awake for an hour, read and replied to a text message, and searched her Bluetooth options, and all before she even bothered to open her eyes. Tinkers were bullshit, there was nothing else to say about them.
She climbed out of bed and got ready for the day, not that she knew what she would end up doing. Her father was likely to get back to work, but Uncle Jacob would likely still be around. Maybe he would have some testing ideas.
In addition to grabbing her phone Taylor also packed up the little charging cradle for the earpiece that no longer existed. Not like she needed it now, but someone else could probably use a spare. They had spare charging cables (but not cradles) for the phones, after all.
Heading downstairs she found her father preparing french toast. "Morning."
"Morning," Danny responded, flipping the current batch of french toast. "I'm going to head into the office today, but call me if you need anything."
"Will do," Taylor said, setting the earpiece charging cradle on the counter. "Dunno if you want this as a spare, or if I should offer it to Uncle Jacob, but I don't need it anymore."
"That is a disturbingly good point," Danny admitted, looking down at the cradle. "I don't think I need it, as the earpiece is supposed to last eighteen hours or so per charge. Jacob travels quite a bit, though, so perhaps he could use one for travel?"
"I'll check with him when he gets up," Taylor said, then realized that he hadn't been moving on her snark sense. "Speaking of which, did he actually decide to sleep in today?"
"I believe he did."
"Wonders never cease."
"Granted, I did slip him a sleeping pill last night."
"Nevermind, then."
The two ate breakfast together, and Taylor handled most of the clean-up while Danny finished getting ready for work. Jacob started moving shortly after Danny had left, so Taylor ensured that the extra french toast was ready for him to warm up in the microwave if he wanted.
"Good morning Taylor," Jacob said as he wandered into the kitchen.
Taylor was poking through the newspaper, not finding anything of interest. "Morning," she replied, giving up on the news and going for the comics. After some snickering she put the paper down and left her uncle to his breakfast as she wandered into the living room to watch some television.
Half an hour later she had taken a quick look at the news, finding out about a press conference about the Winslow student situation that afternoon and some celebrity got arrested last night. From there she checked the weather to find that it was supposed to be chilly but above freezing, with a chance of rain this afternoon and potential downpours tomorrow. She then tried watching the morning cartoons, only to find them too childish at this hour. Frustrated she turned off the television and pulled out her phone.
"Before you get into that," Jacob said from the door, startling Taylor. She knew he was there, just not that he was about to say something. "I think we should make some plans for the next couple of days."
"Er," Taylor said, putting her phone back in the belt holster she was using. "Ok?"
"To start with," Jacob said as he dropped into the easy chair. "I think this morning we should do some more tests with your upgrades. The PRT watchers observed a number of tests, but given that Riley barely remembers them you probably don't have much recollection either."
"I was wanting to do something about that," Taylor admitted. "Just wasn't sure where or how."
"I arranged for some time at a gym in a couple of hours."
"A gym?"
"In this case it is one of the places the PRT helps get set up where parahumans can do discrete testing and training without drawing attention to themselves. Around here if you don't care about attention you generally wander out to the boat graveyard, but I think we want to be more discreet today. I generally keep tabs of where they are because most of the Nine aren't running around as parahumans most weeks, not that they make them hard to find if you know how."
"Ok, that makes sense."
"After that I think we should grab some of the books and lesson plans used at Arcadia. See if you can study up to 'current'."
"That we don't need to do," Taylor said, getting up. Jacob watched as she darted upstairs, wondering why she suddenly jumped up and ran off, but trusted she had a good reason.
A couple minutes later Taylor returned with a box Jacob vaguely recognized from when he had been searching her room. He hadn't given it much thought as it was all school materials.
"I may actually be ahead of Arcadia's curriculum," Taylor admitted, putting the box down on the coffee table. "I kept hoping I would be able to transfer, so I started a self-study routine back in October. Made it easier to keep up at Winslow too, given how far behind Winslow is compared to Arcadia and how horrible Winslow's books are in comparison."
Jacob poked through the box, then pulled his phone out and consulted a list he had there. Huh, she was right, this was the same basic book set he was planning on getting her. "How did you get all of the books? You haven't had enough of an allowance to afford them."
"They are technically on loan from Arcadia for those looking to get their grades up to try and qualify to attend there. The workbooks are self-study ones they supply for that as well. I was only permitted to take a set home instead of visiting Arcadia on nights and weekends because I had qualified for entry before I started at Winslow, and my grades at Winslow wouldn't matter due to the different curriculums and the horrible learning environment Winslow provided. I was planning on taking their tests this summer to try and get a scholarship for next year anyway, which would side-step the Winslow staff apparently rejecting all transfer applications."
"Does your father know about any of this?"
"Er, I told him I was doing some extra self study, just not how much? I was hoping to surprise him with the good news. Not having to do all the homework helped too."
Jacob flipped through several of the notebooks and a couple of the workbooks, in the latter case comparing every so often to something on his phone. Finally he put everything down and sat back. "Well, that should make entering Arcadia easier. Perhaps we should instead arrange for you to take their entry exams? It will look less odd if you get to doing that before joining the Wards anyway."
"Do you know what they are going to announce at the press conference?"
"A few details, but not everything. I mainly found the details relating to Arcadia. Still, some of it is that they plan on having every student run through evaluation tests before they figure out how to split them up due to 'irregularities' with the record keeping at Winslow. But Arcadia is only intending to allow those that pass their tests to attend either way, even if the city is willing to pay tuition, so it will make sense for you to take those tests instead. Passing them and being accepted would negate your need to take the tests the rest of Winslow students will be taking as well."
"What if some students are able to get into Arcadia, but haven't taken Arcadia's tests?"
"I suspect that anyone that does well enough on the evaluation tests will get offered a run at Arcadia's. Not sure, though. They may cover that in the press conference anyway."
"Alright." Taylor thought for a moment, and decided there wasn't much to add there. "So when are we expected at that gym you mentioned?"
"Anytime this morning, their schedule was clear today when I asked to reserve it. Do you want to head over now?"
"Sure."
It actually took them about an hour to get to the gym, in part because Taylor had to change into something more suitable and disposable. She also had to prepare a spare outfit just in case the first outfit had to be disposed of immediately.
As they arrived Taylor looked at the outside of the slightly run down gym on the edge of the docks. It didn't look like much, but that was probably the point. Jacob did not lead them in through the front, though. Instead he brought her down an alley to what looked like an employee entrance next to a dumpster. He then held his phone up to a spot on the wall with a faded Alexandria sticker stuck to it.
The phone beeped a moment later and the door clicked, then the two went in to find a set of stairs going down just after a small landing. They went down a couple of floors worth of stairs to find themselves in a hallway. Doors to several areas were marked, including several generic individual changing rooms. There were also a series of lockers without locks next to where they came in.
"Just so that you know," Jacob said, holding his phone up to show what looked like a digital ID card. "You should be able to do that as well with the 'gym membership' app open. I'll explain more about using the app, how to figure out the secret entrances as the app only tells you the participating gym addresses, and other details later. Oh, and as an added bonus you can use it in the main gym as well to prove membership if you actually want to work out in your normal identity."
"Sounds useful," Taylor said, pulling her phone out and finding the app to make sure she knew which one it was. It even had her name showing on the ID card when she opened it, and the included map showed that they were in one of two participating Brockton Bay locations. The other one was a couple blocks away from the PRT building.
"Note that generally if there are multiple locations in a given town that one is a testing facility, like this one, and the other is for more normal gym activities. Now then," Jacob said, gesturing at the lockers. "I suggest you drop your spare clothes in one of the lockers, then we can get started."
"So why didn't we come here when I wanted to hit things?" Taylor asked as she closed the locker she had thrown her bag into. "Instead of being out in the open?"
"Three reasons," Jacob said, leading Taylor to a door with what looked like a saw blade on it. That was disturbing. "The first is that they don't like parahumans engaging in potentially destructive to the facility testing here unless you are already a member of the Wards or Protectorate. Even then they prefer you do that in the PRT building or in the Protectorate headquarters out in the bay, at least if it is possible for you to get to either. Next up is that they prefer that non-parahumans only get informed that these locations even exist if they are employed by the PRT. Finally, I didn't want to have to explain how a prepaid for five years cell phone could include a gym membership."
"They aren't even paid up, are they," Taylor added, grinning. "They would have to be on a plan, probably yours."
"And that is just another reason you should have no problem at Arcadia. Don't tell your father, either he honestly has no clue or he is being willfully ignorant. Now, let's see how cut-resistant you are, that is why we came to the poor man's power testing facility after all."
Over the next couple of hours Taylor was exposed to blades (only the most serious got more than skin deep, but they still stung), flames (burns still hurt), lasers (burns again, ouch), bullets (small caliber only, they stung but didn't penetrate her arm), and was just finishing up blunt impacts.
"Note to self," Taylor mumbled as she picked herself up off of the floor after having been slammed into by a large weight. "Even if I can survive it, getting hit by a car will hurt."
"Yea, I don't recommend it," Jacob quipped. "So, all that is left is some basic strength tests."
Jacob led Taylor to a room filled with a large number of weights as well as several wall-mounted targets. Some of the weights were sitting on racks or what looked like marked spots on the floor, others were attached to cables.
"First up, work your way down the free-weights," Jacob said. "Do your best to figure out where your limits are with one hand first, then switch to both."
Taylor made her way down the line of weights, eventually stopping at the 70 kg weights with a single hand. Using both hands she made it up to 110 kg.
"Very good for your muscle development. If I understand things correctly that will only go up. So, lesson time," Jacob said, pointing at one of the vertical cables labeled 90 kg. "Pull on that, would you?"
Taylor walked over to the cable and, after getting a good grip, pulled herself off of her feet because she didn't weigh enough and then fell on her ass because her footing had been unstable and set her swinging.
"There you go," Jacob said as he helped Taylor up from where she had fallen. "Object lesson complete. For some reason most people who trigger as brutes with enhanced strength don't actually need to worry about footing, or the fact that they are moving things that are more massive than they are. Artificial brutes like the two of us do. If you don't have decent footing or something to brace against your strength is much less useful."
"I get that, yea," Taylor said, giving Jacob a slight glare. "So, what are the targets on the walls for, given that we have already used pretty much everything else?"
"Punching," Jacob said. "Speaking of which, let's go do that. Er, you do know how to throw a punch, right?"
"That depends," Taylor replied. "Does what the dockworkers taught me count?"
"Just don't grip your own thumb," Jacob sighed. "Even if it likely could take the abuse."
After showing Taylor how the punching pads worked and adjusting one to the correct height for her she went at it. Twenty punches, alternating hands.
"Average of about 700 pounds there," Jacob said, whistling lightly. "I usually only average 750, so good job kid."
"I would congratulate Riley and Amy, honestly."
"True, true, still good on you. By the way, how are those burns from earlier?"
"Er," Taylor mumbled, feeling the points they had used in the flame and laser tests. "They feel fine actually. What the hell? Shouldn't they hurt like hell still?" She took a good look at the skin. "Or, you know, look like I had been hurt?"
"I think you've got some enhanced healing that nobody bothered to mention. I suspected it when I noticed the deepest cut we got on your arm had already closed up by the time we got started on hitting you with carefully calibrated baseball bats. In fact, right now it looks like it didn't even scar."
"Huh," Taylor poked at where said cut had been. Nothing but clean, unblemished skin. "That should help keep Dad happy."
"Kinda hoping Riley knows how to do that," Jacob admitted. "I would like the upgrade, given that the normal methods involve patching most of us up afterwards or, for the much rarer serious injuries, visiting someone like Amy."
"Might have been Amy's doing, probably was for that matter."
"Kinda hoping it wasn't. I doubt she would give me the upgrade then."
"Yea, I suppose you are ugly enough to refuse."
"What?" Jacob stopped and stared at Taylor for a moment, stunned at the sudden joke. He stayed that way just long enough for Taylor to slip out of the room. "HEY, GET BACK HERE!" Even though the grin on his face did not look like an angry one Taylor still led him on a merry chase throughout the various rooms of the facility. As a side bonus, she discovered that her endurance lasted longer than his did.
"Wooo, that hit the spot," Jacob said, patting his stomach. "On a related note, this is our second Fugly's meal in a week. We may need to stop by the hospital to have them check for clogged arteries."
"You may have to," Taylor grinned over her milkshake. "But I got cleaned up since my previous visit, so I think I am good for now." Taylor's phone beeped, a common thing over the past hour, though she did not remove it from her holster. Several other patrons had noticed and thought it was wonderful seeing a teenager able to ignore her phone. Pffft, if they only knew. "I think Dad would like a number four for dinner."
"Well then, let's get him a number four and be on our way."
"Have you heard back from Arcadia yet?" Taylor asked as Jacob started his rental a few minutes later, the light rain that had started thankfully not heavy enough to have soaked them.
"Why would I hear back from them?"
"Next time you don't want me to know you are sending a message don't hold your phone up in front of a mirror while squinting and poking at it."
Jacob thought back to earlier when he had messaged Arcadia to arrange a testing slot for Taylor. He had been leaning against the mirrors in that room, and the stupid web form wasn't as mobile friendly as he would have liked, so he had held his phone up to get a better look…
"Your eyes are apparently much better than mine," Jacob finally said. "And no, I haven't heard back from them."
"Their logo on the top of the screen was the biggest hint. The rest you just confirmed for me."
"Sneaky, and I suppose their logo is rather distinctive. I'll let you know when they do get back to me. You should probably still spend some time every day studying, just to be safe."
"We going to tell Dad or surprise him?"
"I vote we surprise him. Then he isn't disappointed if you somehow don't make it in on your own merit."
Taylor described most of what they knew of her durability and strength to her father while he ate his dinner, only mentioning the burns in passing by virtue of stating they had already healed. Danny was obviously conflicted, disliking that Taylor had been injured at all, yet happy that she had not been seriously injured and had already healed.
The next morning Taylor woke up on her own. She lay there for a moment before feeling something happen. A moment later she suddenly knew that she had two text messages and a software update waiting on her phone.
Taylor grinned and grabbed the phone so she could start the software update, having to do that from the screen. She then quickly reviewed the text messages. One was apparently informing her of the software update she already started, the other was from Riley informing her that they had finally made it home early this morning.
Huh, she had no idea where Riley lived. That might be intentional, though.
Not in the mood to get moving yet Taylor watched the software update install, unable to do much more while that was happening. Maybe she should have started that after she amused herself online? Still, the update didn't take long. The changelog said that it fixed a problem with the tinkertech NFC system, whatever that was.
Checking the weather first she found that the rain she could hear coming down outside would continue to do so for most of the day. Unless the temperature dropped low enough that it changed to snow. Huh, thinking about that, with her improved strength and endurance shoveling would probably be more tedious than tiring now. Next up she checked the news, finding a summary of the press conference they never checked up on yesterday.
Reading over the summary she found that Winslow students would get a letter by the end of the week with a test date and location. Students were required to attend their test date unless alternate accommodations were made. Test results would then either place the student into a specific school based on 'curriculum compatibility' or trigger a second test date for private school acceptance. Some students could be back to attending classes by the middle of next week, everyone should be by the start of February even if they ended up needing multiple test dates.
This was also all supposed to be a temporary solution until a new school could be built, though students would have the option of not switching schools again if their grades were good enough and they had no disciplinary issues. If you qualified for Arcadia those were pretty much conditions for attending anyway, so anyone who pulled that off would be golden.
Switching to PHO one of the things that jumped out at her immediately was a thread wondering what had happened to Glory Girl. A quick read-through revealed that she seemed almost afraid to fly yesterday? Several people also commented that she no longer seemed to inspire awe just by being in her presence. They even had pictures of her looking very unsure of herself outside of school. No word from anyone at New Wave, though.
On a whim Taylor sent Amy a text message, asking about how Vicky was doing. Hopefully Vicky would recover, even if her snark was obnoxious.
Beyond that nothing much was grabbing her attention on PHO, so she decided it was time to get up. Twenty minutes later she finally made it downstairs, finding that today Uncle Jacob was waiting for her. She supposed her father had already left for work.
"Morning Taylor," Jacob greeted as he read the paper. "By the way, your father said I could have the earpiece charging cradle you left on the counter?"
"Morning," Taylor returned. "And yea, I guess I forgot about that. I don't really need it anymore after all."
"Yea, I still find that a bit creepy. You see the news we missed regarding Winslow students?"
"Saw that online before I came down. I would feel sorry for everyone having to run through hoops if, you know, it hadn't been the culmination of the bullying campaign against me they were ignoring."
"That is a good point. At any rate, just before you came down I got a response from Arcadia. Your tests are Thursday and Friday, you will be in a different room than the other Winslow students taking the standard exam there but they will show you where when you give your name. Oh, and we are to ignore the letter from the city telling you to be at Clarendon instead, you apparently were in one of the first groups assigned a test location."
"Awesome, but that means I am going into study mode for a couple of days."
"Yep. Lucky for you the weather is perfect for staying indoors."
"Yea yea." Taylor poured herself some cereal, as it looked like nobody had cooked this morning. Once she had finished that she filled a water bottle for sipping and headed back up to her room. She pulled out her box of Arcadia study materials and started revising. She might grumble a bit, but she did want to get into Arcadia.
Around lunchtime Taylor took a break to make a sandwich and ended up trading text messages with Amy while the cell repeaters were enabled in Arcadia. Apparently the sudden loss of her powers, and subsequent change of how her aura acted, had scared Vicky into thinking her powers were failing or something. Amy thought she was slowly recovering, but only time would tell.
She also checked the mail and found her letter from the school system with instructions to report to Clarendon on Thursday and Friday, so apparently Arcadia was well in the know. Jacob had sent the alternate instructions for Arcadia to her phone, and was going to bring her anyway, so her father should be left clueless until the results came back from Arcadia.
After lunch, and the apparent shutdown of the cell repeaters and thus losing contact with Amy, Taylor returned to her studying. She only had a couple of days, after all, so she needed to get as much studying in as possible.
Taylor spent most time she was not eating or sleeping studying the following day as well, with some text message conversations with Amy and Riley. She had found that the lack of information on where Riley lived was, in fact, intentional for Riley's protection. Should Taylor prove to be personally trustworthy in other matters she would eventually be allowed to know.
She also got around to playing with the music and headset modes of her Bluetooth organ. Being able to hear the music or person on the phone without any actual sound in the area was odd, as it seemed like her ears were on a different mental 'channel' than the Bluetooth audio. She also quickly learned that she could 'sub-vocalize' and the Bluetooth microphone worked just as well. There was even a toggle to let the other end hear what her ears did instead. Most of this was learned while discussing classes with Amy while she rode the bus to the hospital after school on Wednesday.
Thursday morning eventually arrived. Taylor wasn't exactly certain what Uncle Jacob had been up to over the past couple of days, beyond the fact that he had apparently arranged to drop off her Wards application today while she was testing. Her father had apparently been working with several others to try and secure some of the work tearing Winslow down for the union workers, or so he said at dinner the night before.
"Good Luck," Danny said, rubbing Taylor's head as he walked by her as he headed for the door. "Do your best and don't give your uncle any trouble."
"Thanks Dad," Taylor said before returning to her bacon sandwich. Why Uncle Jacob had insisted on two pieces of lightly toasted bread with bacon between them for breakfast Taylor didn't know, but she also wasn't going to be complaining. Eventually, though, breakfast was over and it was time to leave.
The instructions for both Arcadia and Clarendon indicated that lunch would be provided, so Taylor didn't have to worry about that or for any discrepancy being noticed by her father. Actually, both schools also indicated that even things like pencils would be provided, Taylor was supposed to bring pretty much nothing with her regardless of which one she arrived at. The only difference was that Clarendon's instructions stated that cell phones may be collected before the exams began while Arcadia's explained that they would be inoperable in the building except during lunch.
The drive over to Arcadia left Taylor quite nervous for multiple reasons, including that there would be a collection of Winslow students in the building. She was sure she was going to screw something up, or maybe reveal her parahuman status, or something.
"Relax," Jacob said, patting Taylor's shoulder as they waited for a red light. "You will do fine. Just do your best, that is all anyone can ask of you."
Taylor did her best to relax, did not succeed in the least, and was dropped off by Arcadia's main doors. She felt several snarks in the area, but Amy, Vicky, and Dean were the only ones she knew personally and they were over in another part of the building. She figured she shouldn't waste any time and headed in, following signs that had been put up.
Ten minutes later she was sitting in a room, alone. Apparently she was literally the only Winslow student that had made the effort, directly or otherwise, to apply to Arcadia instead of going through the normal testing.
"Now then," the exam proctor, Miss Johansson, said. "As you are the only one taking Arcadia's test instead of the generic one you will be permitted to move on to the next subject early. With any luck you can skip needing to possibly come back for a few hours Tuesday morning for some of the classes you requested."
"Thank you," Taylor said, doing her best to be polite. She had, to help avoid distractions, even switched her snark sense to line of sight.
"Well then," Miss Johansson said. "You have forty-five minutes on this one, you may begin when ready."
Taylor opened the test booklet, losing herself in the exam.
Outside of a quick back and forth text message conversation with Amy at lunch, which had been brought to Taylor to avoid issues with the Winslow students in the cafeteria, Taylor spent pretty much the entire day taking exams with short breaks between them. She did not notice, but she had finished every exam early and thanks to the offer to allow her to start additional ones sooner had completed thirteen exams in a day only eight were originally allocated in, and still got to leave ten minutes early.
Jacob swung by to pick her up, and upon asking how she felt found that she felt burned out. He didn't ask how things were going, given that it was day one of two (though he didn't realize that there had originally been a need for a third session Tuesday). In fact, his goal was to keep her mind off of things.
"So, I hear you have figured out a few additional things about your little Bluetooth upgrade," Jacob said. "In particular, Riley said you were happy you found a way to not have it wake you up?"
"Yea, that is nice," Taylor said, smiling. "I just had to enable power saving sleep mode. When I go to sleep the thing turns off and disconnects from the phone. I do get pings if I wake up for any reason as it reconnects, though. Sucks when I just get up to relieve myself and some alert is waiting."
"I can see how that would be the case. How are you doing on the use of your power?"
"I kept snark sense in line of sight mode during the exams, might have to do that in classes in general, not sure yet. I am probably going to want to hit some things soon, apparently my snark isn't actually satisfied with lightly tapping everything in a room with a pencil. Though I think that is because it got bored with it. Probably the same as I did, really."
"That sounds disturbingly like my own power. Just less obvious."
"I did find out that I can, apparently, erase text with a pencil's eraser from a distance. It just leaves almost pure graphite sitting there that doesn't wipe away well."
"That makes some sense in some ways and no sense in others."
"Snarks apparently have that effect."
Dinner that evening did include some discussion of the exams, in vague terms. Taylor slept quite well.
Friday morning was almost a repeat of Thursday. Get up, eat breakfast, drive to Arcadia, take exams. Taylor finished her seventh just before lunch.
"Congratulations Taylor," Miss Johansson said as she collected the exam packet. "You have completed all twenty exams. You can either stick around and have lunch or leave, your choice."
"What? I'm done?" Taylor said, a bit stunned. "Wow. I guess I will head home?"
"Since you are the only examinee being graded by us your results will likely be available Tuesday. Enjoy your weekend."
"Thank you."
Taylor was able to send Jacob a text on her way out, or rather she queued it for sending and it sent as soon as the cell repeaters activated. She let Amy and Riley know that she had, apparently, finished her exams early, getting out of the school building itself shortly afterwards.
Her uncle showed up, a bit surprised to be picking her up early. "I think I can say good job, given that you finished early."
"Yesterday they implied I would need to show up Tuesday for the last few exams," Taylor said. "Yet today I finished the last of them. I crammed two and a half days of exams into one and a half days, apparently."
"If you did well it will reflect even better on you. If you did slightly poorly it will make it seem like you rushed yourself, which may be seen as needing a little work but will probably not hurt your chances. Either way, unless you bombed an important exam somehow you are probably all set."
"And now I can't help but wonder if I did bomb one of the important exams. Thank you so much," Taylor deadpanned.
"Moving on, as you know I filed your paperwork for joining the Wards yesterday. I hadn't known about the potential Tuesday exams and potential studying for them, so I had told them you could show up for initial stuff Monday. You still good for that?"
"That works for me. My exam results may be ready then too, if they can get them early."
"Well, we will have to see how things go. For the time being, though, I doubt you had lunch, so I think I will treat you to an actual restaurant today."
The two of them had lunch, and then headed back to the Hebert household. Taylor entertained herself for a bit using random things in the basement as blunt objects to hit other random things in the basement, followed by making her way through PHO posts and various random videos online.
At dinner Danny was very tired, having apparently spent the day running around town chasing people down to chat with them about the Winslow work. He was still happy to hear that Taylor had finished her exams. He informed her that Jacob had let him know about the Monday visit to the PRT, so he would be available.
All three of them ended up going to bed a little earlier than usual. Taylor was burned out mentally, Danny more physically, and Jacob was just plain bored enough to think sleep the better alternative.
"BTW, since we didn't talk about it yesterday, the PRT watchers told me we tested your upgrades. They worked fine."
Well, that was good to know. She still wanted to test some of them for herself, though. She sent a thanks in reply anyway, then started poking around her mental Bluetooth interface for a don't wake me up button. Which was more difficult than it seemed because her interface wasn't something she could look at and just open everything.
It took her nearly an hour, but she finally found an option tied to the pairing. Apparently she had a power-saving sleep mode? And it would activate when she was actually asleep, she hoped that meant she would just disconnect from the phone when she was asleep. She ensured that it was enabled, re-named the phone to 'personal' instead of 'civilian', and then poked around some more just in case she missed something. Finally she opened her eyes.
Huh, she had been awake for an hour, read and replied to a text message, and searched her Bluetooth options, and all before she even bothered to open her eyes. Tinkers were bullshit, there was nothing else to say about them.
She climbed out of bed and got ready for the day, not that she knew what she would end up doing. Her father was likely to get back to work, but Uncle Jacob would likely still be around. Maybe he would have some testing ideas.
In addition to grabbing her phone Taylor also packed up the little charging cradle for the earpiece that no longer existed. Not like she needed it now, but someone else could probably use a spare. They had spare charging cables (but not cradles) for the phones, after all.
Heading downstairs she found her father preparing french toast. "Morning."
"Morning," Danny responded, flipping the current batch of french toast. "I'm going to head into the office today, but call me if you need anything."
"Will do," Taylor said, setting the earpiece charging cradle on the counter. "Dunno if you want this as a spare, or if I should offer it to Uncle Jacob, but I don't need it anymore."
"That is a disturbingly good point," Danny admitted, looking down at the cradle. "I don't think I need it, as the earpiece is supposed to last eighteen hours or so per charge. Jacob travels quite a bit, though, so perhaps he could use one for travel?"
"I'll check with him when he gets up," Taylor said, then realized that he hadn't been moving on her snark sense. "Speaking of which, did he actually decide to sleep in today?"
"I believe he did."
"Wonders never cease."
"Granted, I did slip him a sleeping pill last night."
"Nevermind, then."
The two ate breakfast together, and Taylor handled most of the clean-up while Danny finished getting ready for work. Jacob started moving shortly after Danny had left, so Taylor ensured that the extra french toast was ready for him to warm up in the microwave if he wanted.
"Good morning Taylor," Jacob said as he wandered into the kitchen.
Taylor was poking through the newspaper, not finding anything of interest. "Morning," she replied, giving up on the news and going for the comics. After some snickering she put the paper down and left her uncle to his breakfast as she wandered into the living room to watch some television.
Half an hour later she had taken a quick look at the news, finding out about a press conference about the Winslow student situation that afternoon and some celebrity got arrested last night. From there she checked the weather to find that it was supposed to be chilly but above freezing, with a chance of rain this afternoon and potential downpours tomorrow. She then tried watching the morning cartoons, only to find them too childish at this hour. Frustrated she turned off the television and pulled out her phone.
"Before you get into that," Jacob said from the door, startling Taylor. She knew he was there, just not that he was about to say something. "I think we should make some plans for the next couple of days."
"Er," Taylor said, putting her phone back in the belt holster she was using. "Ok?"
"To start with," Jacob said as he dropped into the easy chair. "I think this morning we should do some more tests with your upgrades. The PRT watchers observed a number of tests, but given that Riley barely remembers them you probably don't have much recollection either."
"I was wanting to do something about that," Taylor admitted. "Just wasn't sure where or how."
"I arranged for some time at a gym in a couple of hours."
"A gym?"
"In this case it is one of the places the PRT helps get set up where parahumans can do discrete testing and training without drawing attention to themselves. Around here if you don't care about attention you generally wander out to the boat graveyard, but I think we want to be more discreet today. I generally keep tabs of where they are because most of the Nine aren't running around as parahumans most weeks, not that they make them hard to find if you know how."
"Ok, that makes sense."
"After that I think we should grab some of the books and lesson plans used at Arcadia. See if you can study up to 'current'."
"That we don't need to do," Taylor said, getting up. Jacob watched as she darted upstairs, wondering why she suddenly jumped up and ran off, but trusted she had a good reason.
A couple minutes later Taylor returned with a box Jacob vaguely recognized from when he had been searching her room. He hadn't given it much thought as it was all school materials.
"I may actually be ahead of Arcadia's curriculum," Taylor admitted, putting the box down on the coffee table. "I kept hoping I would be able to transfer, so I started a self-study routine back in October. Made it easier to keep up at Winslow too, given how far behind Winslow is compared to Arcadia and how horrible Winslow's books are in comparison."
Jacob poked through the box, then pulled his phone out and consulted a list he had there. Huh, she was right, this was the same basic book set he was planning on getting her. "How did you get all of the books? You haven't had enough of an allowance to afford them."
"They are technically on loan from Arcadia for those looking to get their grades up to try and qualify to attend there. The workbooks are self-study ones they supply for that as well. I was only permitted to take a set home instead of visiting Arcadia on nights and weekends because I had qualified for entry before I started at Winslow, and my grades at Winslow wouldn't matter due to the different curriculums and the horrible learning environment Winslow provided. I was planning on taking their tests this summer to try and get a scholarship for next year anyway, which would side-step the Winslow staff apparently rejecting all transfer applications."
"Does your father know about any of this?"
"Er, I told him I was doing some extra self study, just not how much? I was hoping to surprise him with the good news. Not having to do all the homework helped too."
Jacob flipped through several of the notebooks and a couple of the workbooks, in the latter case comparing every so often to something on his phone. Finally he put everything down and sat back. "Well, that should make entering Arcadia easier. Perhaps we should instead arrange for you to take their entry exams? It will look less odd if you get to doing that before joining the Wards anyway."
"Do you know what they are going to announce at the press conference?"
"A few details, but not everything. I mainly found the details relating to Arcadia. Still, some of it is that they plan on having every student run through evaluation tests before they figure out how to split them up due to 'irregularities' with the record keeping at Winslow. But Arcadia is only intending to allow those that pass their tests to attend either way, even if the city is willing to pay tuition, so it will make sense for you to take those tests instead. Passing them and being accepted would negate your need to take the tests the rest of Winslow students will be taking as well."
"What if some students are able to get into Arcadia, but haven't taken Arcadia's tests?"
"I suspect that anyone that does well enough on the evaluation tests will get offered a run at Arcadia's. Not sure, though. They may cover that in the press conference anyway."
"Alright." Taylor thought for a moment, and decided there wasn't much to add there. "So when are we expected at that gym you mentioned?"
"Anytime this morning, their schedule was clear today when I asked to reserve it. Do you want to head over now?"
"Sure."
It actually took them about an hour to get to the gym, in part because Taylor had to change into something more suitable and disposable. She also had to prepare a spare outfit just in case the first outfit had to be disposed of immediately.
As they arrived Taylor looked at the outside of the slightly run down gym on the edge of the docks. It didn't look like much, but that was probably the point. Jacob did not lead them in through the front, though. Instead he brought her down an alley to what looked like an employee entrance next to a dumpster. He then held his phone up to a spot on the wall with a faded Alexandria sticker stuck to it.
The phone beeped a moment later and the door clicked, then the two went in to find a set of stairs going down just after a small landing. They went down a couple of floors worth of stairs to find themselves in a hallway. Doors to several areas were marked, including several generic individual changing rooms. There were also a series of lockers without locks next to where they came in.
"Just so that you know," Jacob said, holding his phone up to show what looked like a digital ID card. "You should be able to do that as well with the 'gym membership' app open. I'll explain more about using the app, how to figure out the secret entrances as the app only tells you the participating gym addresses, and other details later. Oh, and as an added bonus you can use it in the main gym as well to prove membership if you actually want to work out in your normal identity."
"Sounds useful," Taylor said, pulling her phone out and finding the app to make sure she knew which one it was. It even had her name showing on the ID card when she opened it, and the included map showed that they were in one of two participating Brockton Bay locations. The other one was a couple blocks away from the PRT building.
"Note that generally if there are multiple locations in a given town that one is a testing facility, like this one, and the other is for more normal gym activities. Now then," Jacob said, gesturing at the lockers. "I suggest you drop your spare clothes in one of the lockers, then we can get started."
"So why didn't we come here when I wanted to hit things?" Taylor asked as she closed the locker she had thrown her bag into. "Instead of being out in the open?"
"Three reasons," Jacob said, leading Taylor to a door with what looked like a saw blade on it. That was disturbing. "The first is that they don't like parahumans engaging in potentially destructive to the facility testing here unless you are already a member of the Wards or Protectorate. Even then they prefer you do that in the PRT building or in the Protectorate headquarters out in the bay, at least if it is possible for you to get to either. Next up is that they prefer that non-parahumans only get informed that these locations even exist if they are employed by the PRT. Finally, I didn't want to have to explain how a prepaid for five years cell phone could include a gym membership."
"They aren't even paid up, are they," Taylor added, grinning. "They would have to be on a plan, probably yours."
"And that is just another reason you should have no problem at Arcadia. Don't tell your father, either he honestly has no clue or he is being willfully ignorant. Now, let's see how cut-resistant you are, that is why we came to the poor man's power testing facility after all."
Over the next couple of hours Taylor was exposed to blades (only the most serious got more than skin deep, but they still stung), flames (burns still hurt), lasers (burns again, ouch), bullets (small caliber only, they stung but didn't penetrate her arm), and was just finishing up blunt impacts.
"Note to self," Taylor mumbled as she picked herself up off of the floor after having been slammed into by a large weight. "Even if I can survive it, getting hit by a car will hurt."
"Yea, I don't recommend it," Jacob quipped. "So, all that is left is some basic strength tests."
Jacob led Taylor to a room filled with a large number of weights as well as several wall-mounted targets. Some of the weights were sitting on racks or what looked like marked spots on the floor, others were attached to cables.
"First up, work your way down the free-weights," Jacob said. "Do your best to figure out where your limits are with one hand first, then switch to both."
Taylor made her way down the line of weights, eventually stopping at the 70 kg weights with a single hand. Using both hands she made it up to 110 kg.
"Very good for your muscle development. If I understand things correctly that will only go up. So, lesson time," Jacob said, pointing at one of the vertical cables labeled 90 kg. "Pull on that, would you?"
Taylor walked over to the cable and, after getting a good grip, pulled herself off of her feet because she didn't weigh enough and then fell on her ass because her footing had been unstable and set her swinging.
"There you go," Jacob said as he helped Taylor up from where she had fallen. "Object lesson complete. For some reason most people who trigger as brutes with enhanced strength don't actually need to worry about footing, or the fact that they are moving things that are more massive than they are. Artificial brutes like the two of us do. If you don't have decent footing or something to brace against your strength is much less useful."
"I get that, yea," Taylor said, giving Jacob a slight glare. "So, what are the targets on the walls for, given that we have already used pretty much everything else?"
"Punching," Jacob said. "Speaking of which, let's go do that. Er, you do know how to throw a punch, right?"
"That depends," Taylor replied. "Does what the dockworkers taught me count?"
"Just don't grip your own thumb," Jacob sighed. "Even if it likely could take the abuse."
After showing Taylor how the punching pads worked and adjusting one to the correct height for her she went at it. Twenty punches, alternating hands.
"Average of about 700 pounds there," Jacob said, whistling lightly. "I usually only average 750, so good job kid."
"I would congratulate Riley and Amy, honestly."
"True, true, still good on you. By the way, how are those burns from earlier?"
"Er," Taylor mumbled, feeling the points they had used in the flame and laser tests. "They feel fine actually. What the hell? Shouldn't they hurt like hell still?" She took a good look at the skin. "Or, you know, look like I had been hurt?"
"I think you've got some enhanced healing that nobody bothered to mention. I suspected it when I noticed the deepest cut we got on your arm had already closed up by the time we got started on hitting you with carefully calibrated baseball bats. In fact, right now it looks like it didn't even scar."
"Huh," Taylor poked at where said cut had been. Nothing but clean, unblemished skin. "That should help keep Dad happy."
"Kinda hoping Riley knows how to do that," Jacob admitted. "I would like the upgrade, given that the normal methods involve patching most of us up afterwards or, for the much rarer serious injuries, visiting someone like Amy."
"Might have been Amy's doing, probably was for that matter."
"Kinda hoping it wasn't. I doubt she would give me the upgrade then."
"Yea, I suppose you are ugly enough to refuse."
"What?" Jacob stopped and stared at Taylor for a moment, stunned at the sudden joke. He stayed that way just long enough for Taylor to slip out of the room. "HEY, GET BACK HERE!" Even though the grin on his face did not look like an angry one Taylor still led him on a merry chase throughout the various rooms of the facility. As a side bonus, she discovered that her endurance lasted longer than his did.
"Wooo, that hit the spot," Jacob said, patting his stomach. "On a related note, this is our second Fugly's meal in a week. We may need to stop by the hospital to have them check for clogged arteries."
"You may have to," Taylor grinned over her milkshake. "But I got cleaned up since my previous visit, so I think I am good for now." Taylor's phone beeped, a common thing over the past hour, though she did not remove it from her holster. Several other patrons had noticed and thought it was wonderful seeing a teenager able to ignore her phone. Pffft, if they only knew. "I think Dad would like a number four for dinner."
"Well then, let's get him a number four and be on our way."
"Have you heard back from Arcadia yet?" Taylor asked as Jacob started his rental a few minutes later, the light rain that had started thankfully not heavy enough to have soaked them.
"Why would I hear back from them?"
"Next time you don't want me to know you are sending a message don't hold your phone up in front of a mirror while squinting and poking at it."
Jacob thought back to earlier when he had messaged Arcadia to arrange a testing slot for Taylor. He had been leaning against the mirrors in that room, and the stupid web form wasn't as mobile friendly as he would have liked, so he had held his phone up to get a better look…
"Your eyes are apparently much better than mine," Jacob finally said. "And no, I haven't heard back from them."
"Their logo on the top of the screen was the biggest hint. The rest you just confirmed for me."
"Sneaky, and I suppose their logo is rather distinctive. I'll let you know when they do get back to me. You should probably still spend some time every day studying, just to be safe."
"We going to tell Dad or surprise him?"
"I vote we surprise him. Then he isn't disappointed if you somehow don't make it in on your own merit."
Taylor described most of what they knew of her durability and strength to her father while he ate his dinner, only mentioning the burns in passing by virtue of stating they had already healed. Danny was obviously conflicted, disliking that Taylor had been injured at all, yet happy that she had not been seriously injured and had already healed.
The next morning Taylor woke up on her own. She lay there for a moment before feeling something happen. A moment later she suddenly knew that she had two text messages and a software update waiting on her phone.
Taylor grinned and grabbed the phone so she could start the software update, having to do that from the screen. She then quickly reviewed the text messages. One was apparently informing her of the software update she already started, the other was from Riley informing her that they had finally made it home early this morning.
Huh, she had no idea where Riley lived. That might be intentional, though.
Not in the mood to get moving yet Taylor watched the software update install, unable to do much more while that was happening. Maybe she should have started that after she amused herself online? Still, the update didn't take long. The changelog said that it fixed a problem with the tinkertech NFC system, whatever that was.
Checking the weather first she found that the rain she could hear coming down outside would continue to do so for most of the day. Unless the temperature dropped low enough that it changed to snow. Huh, thinking about that, with her improved strength and endurance shoveling would probably be more tedious than tiring now. Next up she checked the news, finding a summary of the press conference they never checked up on yesterday.
Reading over the summary she found that Winslow students would get a letter by the end of the week with a test date and location. Students were required to attend their test date unless alternate accommodations were made. Test results would then either place the student into a specific school based on 'curriculum compatibility' or trigger a second test date for private school acceptance. Some students could be back to attending classes by the middle of next week, everyone should be by the start of February even if they ended up needing multiple test dates.
This was also all supposed to be a temporary solution until a new school could be built, though students would have the option of not switching schools again if their grades were good enough and they had no disciplinary issues. If you qualified for Arcadia those were pretty much conditions for attending anyway, so anyone who pulled that off would be golden.
Switching to PHO one of the things that jumped out at her immediately was a thread wondering what had happened to Glory Girl. A quick read-through revealed that she seemed almost afraid to fly yesterday? Several people also commented that she no longer seemed to inspire awe just by being in her presence. They even had pictures of her looking very unsure of herself outside of school. No word from anyone at New Wave, though.
On a whim Taylor sent Amy a text message, asking about how Vicky was doing. Hopefully Vicky would recover, even if her snark was obnoxious.
Beyond that nothing much was grabbing her attention on PHO, so she decided it was time to get up. Twenty minutes later she finally made it downstairs, finding that today Uncle Jacob was waiting for her. She supposed her father had already left for work.
"Morning Taylor," Jacob greeted as he read the paper. "By the way, your father said I could have the earpiece charging cradle you left on the counter?"
"Morning," Taylor returned. "And yea, I guess I forgot about that. I don't really need it anymore after all."
"Yea, I still find that a bit creepy. You see the news we missed regarding Winslow students?"
"Saw that online before I came down. I would feel sorry for everyone having to run through hoops if, you know, it hadn't been the culmination of the bullying campaign against me they were ignoring."
"That is a good point. At any rate, just before you came down I got a response from Arcadia. Your tests are Thursday and Friday, you will be in a different room than the other Winslow students taking the standard exam there but they will show you where when you give your name. Oh, and we are to ignore the letter from the city telling you to be at Clarendon instead, you apparently were in one of the first groups assigned a test location."
"Awesome, but that means I am going into study mode for a couple of days."
"Yep. Lucky for you the weather is perfect for staying indoors."
"Yea yea." Taylor poured herself some cereal, as it looked like nobody had cooked this morning. Once she had finished that she filled a water bottle for sipping and headed back up to her room. She pulled out her box of Arcadia study materials and started revising. She might grumble a bit, but she did want to get into Arcadia.
Around lunchtime Taylor took a break to make a sandwich and ended up trading text messages with Amy while the cell repeaters were enabled in Arcadia. Apparently the sudden loss of her powers, and subsequent change of how her aura acted, had scared Vicky into thinking her powers were failing or something. Amy thought she was slowly recovering, but only time would tell.
She also checked the mail and found her letter from the school system with instructions to report to Clarendon on Thursday and Friday, so apparently Arcadia was well in the know. Jacob had sent the alternate instructions for Arcadia to her phone, and was going to bring her anyway, so her father should be left clueless until the results came back from Arcadia.
After lunch, and the apparent shutdown of the cell repeaters and thus losing contact with Amy, Taylor returned to her studying. She only had a couple of days, after all, so she needed to get as much studying in as possible.
Taylor spent most time she was not eating or sleeping studying the following day as well, with some text message conversations with Amy and Riley. She had found that the lack of information on where Riley lived was, in fact, intentional for Riley's protection. Should Taylor prove to be personally trustworthy in other matters she would eventually be allowed to know.
She also got around to playing with the music and headset modes of her Bluetooth organ. Being able to hear the music or person on the phone without any actual sound in the area was odd, as it seemed like her ears were on a different mental 'channel' than the Bluetooth audio. She also quickly learned that she could 'sub-vocalize' and the Bluetooth microphone worked just as well. There was even a toggle to let the other end hear what her ears did instead. Most of this was learned while discussing classes with Amy while she rode the bus to the hospital after school on Wednesday.
Thursday morning eventually arrived. Taylor wasn't exactly certain what Uncle Jacob had been up to over the past couple of days, beyond the fact that he had apparently arranged to drop off her Wards application today while she was testing. Her father had apparently been working with several others to try and secure some of the work tearing Winslow down for the union workers, or so he said at dinner the night before.
"Good Luck," Danny said, rubbing Taylor's head as he walked by her as he headed for the door. "Do your best and don't give your uncle any trouble."
"Thanks Dad," Taylor said before returning to her bacon sandwich. Why Uncle Jacob had insisted on two pieces of lightly toasted bread with bacon between them for breakfast Taylor didn't know, but she also wasn't going to be complaining. Eventually, though, breakfast was over and it was time to leave.
The instructions for both Arcadia and Clarendon indicated that lunch would be provided, so Taylor didn't have to worry about that or for any discrepancy being noticed by her father. Actually, both schools also indicated that even things like pencils would be provided, Taylor was supposed to bring pretty much nothing with her regardless of which one she arrived at. The only difference was that Clarendon's instructions stated that cell phones may be collected before the exams began while Arcadia's explained that they would be inoperable in the building except during lunch.
The drive over to Arcadia left Taylor quite nervous for multiple reasons, including that there would be a collection of Winslow students in the building. She was sure she was going to screw something up, or maybe reveal her parahuman status, or something.
"Relax," Jacob said, patting Taylor's shoulder as they waited for a red light. "You will do fine. Just do your best, that is all anyone can ask of you."
Taylor did her best to relax, did not succeed in the least, and was dropped off by Arcadia's main doors. She felt several snarks in the area, but Amy, Vicky, and Dean were the only ones she knew personally and they were over in another part of the building. She figured she shouldn't waste any time and headed in, following signs that had been put up.
Ten minutes later she was sitting in a room, alone. Apparently she was literally the only Winslow student that had made the effort, directly or otherwise, to apply to Arcadia instead of going through the normal testing.
"Now then," the exam proctor, Miss Johansson, said. "As you are the only one taking Arcadia's test instead of the generic one you will be permitted to move on to the next subject early. With any luck you can skip needing to possibly come back for a few hours Tuesday morning for some of the classes you requested."
"Thank you," Taylor said, doing her best to be polite. She had, to help avoid distractions, even switched her snark sense to line of sight.
"Well then," Miss Johansson said. "You have forty-five minutes on this one, you may begin when ready."
Taylor opened the test booklet, losing herself in the exam.
Outside of a quick back and forth text message conversation with Amy at lunch, which had been brought to Taylor to avoid issues with the Winslow students in the cafeteria, Taylor spent pretty much the entire day taking exams with short breaks between them. She did not notice, but she had finished every exam early and thanks to the offer to allow her to start additional ones sooner had completed thirteen exams in a day only eight were originally allocated in, and still got to leave ten minutes early.
Jacob swung by to pick her up, and upon asking how she felt found that she felt burned out. He didn't ask how things were going, given that it was day one of two (though he didn't realize that there had originally been a need for a third session Tuesday). In fact, his goal was to keep her mind off of things.
"So, I hear you have figured out a few additional things about your little Bluetooth upgrade," Jacob said. "In particular, Riley said you were happy you found a way to not have it wake you up?"
"Yea, that is nice," Taylor said, smiling. "I just had to enable power saving sleep mode. When I go to sleep the thing turns off and disconnects from the phone. I do get pings if I wake up for any reason as it reconnects, though. Sucks when I just get up to relieve myself and some alert is waiting."
"I can see how that would be the case. How are you doing on the use of your power?"
"I kept snark sense in line of sight mode during the exams, might have to do that in classes in general, not sure yet. I am probably going to want to hit some things soon, apparently my snark isn't actually satisfied with lightly tapping everything in a room with a pencil. Though I think that is because it got bored with it. Probably the same as I did, really."
"That sounds disturbingly like my own power. Just less obvious."
"I did find out that I can, apparently, erase text with a pencil's eraser from a distance. It just leaves almost pure graphite sitting there that doesn't wipe away well."
"That makes some sense in some ways and no sense in others."
"Snarks apparently have that effect."
Dinner that evening did include some discussion of the exams, in vague terms. Taylor slept quite well.
Friday morning was almost a repeat of Thursday. Get up, eat breakfast, drive to Arcadia, take exams. Taylor finished her seventh just before lunch.
"Congratulations Taylor," Miss Johansson said as she collected the exam packet. "You have completed all twenty exams. You can either stick around and have lunch or leave, your choice."
"What? I'm done?" Taylor said, a bit stunned. "Wow. I guess I will head home?"
"Since you are the only examinee being graded by us your results will likely be available Tuesday. Enjoy your weekend."
"Thank you."
Taylor was able to send Jacob a text on her way out, or rather she queued it for sending and it sent as soon as the cell repeaters activated. She let Amy and Riley know that she had, apparently, finished her exams early, getting out of the school building itself shortly afterwards.
Her uncle showed up, a bit surprised to be picking her up early. "I think I can say good job, given that you finished early."
"Yesterday they implied I would need to show up Tuesday for the last few exams," Taylor said. "Yet today I finished the last of them. I crammed two and a half days of exams into one and a half days, apparently."
"If you did well it will reflect even better on you. If you did slightly poorly it will make it seem like you rushed yourself, which may be seen as needing a little work but will probably not hurt your chances. Either way, unless you bombed an important exam somehow you are probably all set."
"And now I can't help but wonder if I did bomb one of the important exams. Thank you so much," Taylor deadpanned.
"Moving on, as you know I filed your paperwork for joining the Wards yesterday. I hadn't known about the potential Tuesday exams and potential studying for them, so I had told them you could show up for initial stuff Monday. You still good for that?"
"That works for me. My exam results may be ready then too, if they can get them early."
"Well, we will have to see how things go. For the time being, though, I doubt you had lunch, so I think I will treat you to an actual restaurant today."
The two of them had lunch, and then headed back to the Hebert household. Taylor entertained herself for a bit using random things in the basement as blunt objects to hit other random things in the basement, followed by making her way through PHO posts and various random videos online.
At dinner Danny was very tired, having apparently spent the day running around town chasing people down to chat with them about the Winslow work. He was still happy to hear that Taylor had finished her exams. He informed her that Jacob had let him know about the Monday visit to the PRT, so he would be available.
All three of them ended up going to bed a little earlier than usual. Taylor was burned out mentally, Danny more physically, and Jacob was just plain bored enough to think sleep the better alternative.