Epsilon Rose
The King of Unrest
Parashutes take time to deploy. I don't think they're really
Selonianth
Writer of Words
Got cut off there. Also FTFY.
Jumping off buildings of one or two stories is easily doable by Maul; you can do it fairly easily as a human being with some training. The leaping off the cliffs at the hot gates onto something and slashing at someone at the same time is sorta ludicrous comic book stuff though.
EDIT: And Slayer level durability is very ... dubious. It varied based on rule of cool according to Joss Whedon's whims; keep in mind we never saw Buffy hit by a car, get a dislocated hip and walk it off after putting it back in place (which Maul has done).
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Troy Guffey
Irresponsible Parasite
- Location
- Western Missouri, USA
There are ways to extremely shorten deployment time.
REF: car-crash airbags
Keep the best, ignore the rest.
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Selonianth
Writer of Words
Buffy WAS thrown into a concrete wall hard enough to crater it, got up, and ran off sore but otherwise unhurt. With that in mind, people who are better than I am at math say she could fall at terminal velocity, hit the ground, and get up just fine.
... With that in mind, I don't think she'd have an issue from a car. She's been hit by things packing more energy than that before.
She's also not nearly as durable as Maul and I'm not going to go by whatever Joss Whedon's rule of cool at the max was when she's been shown being hurt by things that are much less than said max. Slayers are just not that durable.
Selonianth
Writer of Words
The working theory I use is blunt force does significantly, by a lot, less damage than it should Blades have less issue. Keeping that in mind things start to make wayyyyy more sense.
The only exception of "Fall damage can't kill her." that I can think of is the portal... and it very well could've been the portal itself that killed her.
It's ALSO worth pointing out, we're pretty sure Slayers get tougher and stronger the longer they last. This isn't that evident in the show, since her opponents keep getting meaner as well, but it still seems to hold true.
Basically, you can doubt their durability if you wanna, I disagree.
I didn't say they weren't durable; I said I wasn't applying the max 'Rule of Cool' Whedon came up with that directly contradicted already established stuff. He was very prone to doing that; he had no series bible and wouldn't have followed it if he had one.
EDIT: For instance she's been knocked out by being hit in the head with a lead pipe by a normal human cheerleader before. Calls the whole thing into question.
Either way, this is severely off topic.
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Epsilon Rose
The King of Unrest
Bahwuh? How did that happen? Well, @Troy Guffey got the general gist, but it should have said: Parachutes take time to deploy. I don't think they're really helpful for what Maul does.
As for car airbags, those aren't really parachutes. That said, they are somewhat similar, in that they're a bag filled with air. I suppose you could use a similar technique to fill them faster (i.e. explosives or compressed air injected into the chute), but a parachute is much larger, making it harder to fill, and you still wouldn't have much space for it to decelerate you. Such a powered release might also accelerate you down faster, thanks to Newton's Third Law.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Which is in turn based on some stuff he does in the comics.
At the same time, Faith was put into a coma after being stabbed and tossed off a building, which was maybe 3 stories tall. This coma lasted the rest of the season, and a good portion of the next season. Compare that to Buffy getting up after drowning (and being technically dead) then with no issues running off after The Master. It's a fun series, but rather inconsistent in how durable Slayers are and how fast they heal.
Blunt damage can't be less then normal for a Slayer. If it was, Buffy would never have been knocked out like she is at one point. Slayers getting stronger, I might be willing to grant. This would explain why the Council likes to have them killed in a barbaric 'test' once they hit the age of 18. But tougher, that's debatable since regular vampires remain a constant threat the entire series. Remember that Sunday, a vampire, manages to literally beat Buffy up and take her lunch money at the start of Season 4.
EDIT the 2nd: Also keep in mind that Xander Harris pulls off some rather impressive feats of durability throughout the series, especially in later seasons. Feats which Buffy couldn't have done. For example Olaf the Troll God has already taken out everyone else. Xander then tanks a hit of strength which knocked Buffy out, and only gets a broken arm. Which is mostly healed by the time they have the final confrontation with Glory. He gets punched full strength by Angel, and is merely knocked out instead of dead. He then wakes up shortly afterwords. Plus manages later tank what should be a lethal blast of raw dark magic. And Xander is suppose to be a strait unenhanced human (despite all the crud that's happened to him).
At the same time, Faith was put into a coma after being stabbed and tossed off a building, which was maybe 3 stories tall. This coma lasted the rest of the season, and a good portion of the next season. Compare that to Buffy getting up after drowning (and being technically dead) then with no issues running off after The Master. It's a fun series, but rather inconsistent in how durable Slayers are and how fast they heal.
Blunt damage can't be less then normal for a Slayer. If it was, Buffy would never have been knocked out like she is at one point. Slayers getting stronger, I might be willing to grant. This would explain why the Council likes to have them killed in a barbaric 'test' once they hit the age of 18. But tougher, that's debatable since regular vampires remain a constant threat the entire series. Remember that Sunday, a vampire, manages to literally beat Buffy up and take her lunch money at the start of Season 4.
EDIT the 2nd: Also keep in mind that Xander Harris pulls off some rather impressive feats of durability throughout the series, especially in later seasons. Feats which Buffy couldn't have done. For example Olaf the Troll God has already taken out everyone else. Xander then tanks a hit of strength which knocked Buffy out, and only gets a broken arm. Which is mostly healed by the time they have the final confrontation with Glory. He gets punched full strength by Angel, and is merely knocked out instead of dead. He then wakes up shortly afterwords. Plus manages later tank what should be a lethal blast of raw dark magic. And Xander is suppose to be a strait unenhanced human (despite all the crud that's happened to him).
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Troy Guffey
Irresponsible Parasite
- Location
- Western Missouri, USA
Duh, Xander's descended from the Royalty of Amber.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3776911/1/Walking-in-the-shadows
Of course, in some cases, so is Buffy: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/213842/1/The-Unicorn-and-The-Slayer
Or maybe he's a demi-god:
TtH • Story • Scions of Sunnydale
Or the Hellmouth counts as a Deathworld:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/94924/1/The-Price-of-the-Wish
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- Location
- In My Parlour like a Good Arachne
- Pronouns
- She, her
Wow this derail. But seriously I must ask. How much Magic, Demonic Energy and Curse Energy did every person in Sunnydale absorb EVERYDAY just from Proximity to the Hell Mouth? Also why would we expect them to act like baseline after even 5 years of said exposure?
Edit: Forgot to mention that most of the people living in Sunnydale have technically had families live there for Generations.
Back to sorta on topic. I wonder when Dragon is gonna ask Colin out and how big of a shovel will Maul have when he comes to pick her up?
Edit: Also would Uncle Jacob and Grandpa Danny be there with their own shovels or no?
Edit: Forgot to mention that most of the people living in Sunnydale have technically had families live there for Generations.
Back to sorta on topic. I wonder when Dragon is gonna ask Colin out and how big of a shovel will Maul have when he comes to pick her up?
Edit: Also would Uncle Jacob and Grandpa Danny be there with their own shovels or no?
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Epsilon Rose
The King of Unrest
First someone needs to explain to him that she's an AI, so while she might physically be in her (pre?)teens, she is mentally an adult and that's what counts. Until then, he will be very squicked out by the idea.
Chapter 53
"Hello Taylor," Carol said as she held the door for Mark and Vicky to carry food in. Apparently pizza was the dinner of choice today, regardless of where she decided to eat. "I guess we might start dinner early, since you're already here."
"Hi Carol," Taylor replied. "Mark, Vicky."
"Hello Taylor," Mark said, even as Vicky just gave Taylor an odd look.
"So, Taylor," Carol said as she closed, and for some reason locked, the door. "Before dinner I'd like to talk with you about some things."
"Alright," Taylor said as she shared a look with Amy. "What kind of things?"
"The kind of things it took calling Dragon to check your clearance on, as it seems nobody in Brockton Bay was cleared to check. I almost tried calling Chief Director Costa-Brown instead, but I already had Dragon's number."
Whelp, so much for their planning. Still, perhaps she could get an amusing reaction anyway? "Does this have anything to do with the file Amy recently gave you?"
"Yes, it does. How do you know about that?"
"Did you think to ask her if she could check my clearance on it?"
"I couldn't without trying to give her a copy, by the way," Amy replied as Carol imitated a fish. "But I could have told you that Taylor got the file out of the PRT's system for me to share with you in the first place."
Carol looked between the two before facepalming. "Of course she did. Because you had already told us you couldn't do it yourself, so obviously you had help. And since it involved her anyway she was the most likely person to be able to get it."
"I kinda assumed Taylor already knew," Vicky said as she came back from the kitchen. "Probably not the best assumption, but Amy didn't say someone was looking into the stuff in the file, like if she was going to be helping to figure them out. Since she outright told us they were the basis for Taylor's enhancements I figured that she had to have permission from Taylor to tell us."
"I see," Carol said, gesturing to the living room. "Perhaps we should sit down instead of discussing this in the hall. And at least I can take comfort that Dragon was able to inform me that Mister Hebert isn't cleared for the file, so it probably wasn't a complete waste of time."
Huh. Taylor pondered the fact her father wasn't allowed to see the file as they entered the living room. Mark joined them as they all sat down, with Taylor ending up between Amy and Vicky on the couch. Carol and Mark were in their own chairs, with Mark looking interested and Carol looking like she was doing her best to not be angry, but failing. Amy was worried, and Vicky was contemplative? Taylor was doing her best not to poke their snarks for potential info on their thought processes. Well, except for Amy's, but Broadcast Administrator and Shaper almost constantly talked about things when Amy was in range.
"Taylor," Carol continued. "I don't know whose idea it was to use you as a guinea pig for duplicating or improving on that research, and I don't know who signed off on it, but I don't think it should have ever happened to a minor. I'm willing to work with you and your father to see justice done in this case."
That...was not what Taylor was expecting. How was she supposed to respond to that?
"Mom," Vicky said, leaning forward. "You're an idiot. Everyone in the house knows that Amy was involved in Taylor getting her enhancements, in part due to your drunken ranting a couple of times. The only way I can see Amy going along with it in the first place was if there was somehow something seriously wrong with Taylor that she couldn't fix or if she expected things to go ok. In the latter case that would mean that Amy was already familiar with the other tinker or tinkers and the work they would be doing."
"Victoria has a point," Mark said. "In fact, the two of us discussed some of this already, and things keep falling into place to explain our conclusions."
"I find myself wondering what your conclusions are," Taylor said. "Because it seems like the two of you put some thought into it?"
Mark gestured to Vicky, who sighed and leaned back. "Ok, this is kinda spread out a bit. The first evidence was when Amy was called out to fix one of Bonesaw's patients. We weren't supposed to know that, but she needed permission to skip school and it came up. She kept a good act going, but after that her supposed 'hatred' of the Nine had vanished. I couldn't figure out why at the time, but it had been bugging me."
"I had noticed some of that myself," Carol admitted. "And I'm ashamed to admit that, at the time, I saw it as part of descending into villainy or something like that."
"Yeah, well, then Amy ends up doing her fugue thing with Taylor somehow, and the next day I briefly meet their new friend. The more I learn about what Taylor's upgrades do the more I wonder about said friend, whom I haven't seen again. Then Amy showed us that information, and all of a sudden I'm realizing that 'friend' looked a lot like Bonesaw might in normal clothes and a hat."
"I am getting some very disturbing ideas here," Carol warned.
"Mom, near as I can figure, either Bonesaw has a close, similar-looking family member with a similar power, which I don't think would cause Amy's view of things to change much, or the Nine aren't what they seem and that was Bonesaw. Either way I know I don't have all the information."
"We figured this was a test to see if we could be given more of the information we don't have," Mark added. "One that I'm not sure you passed, dear. Though at least we now know what you were likely trying to do while the two of us chatted, it never occurred to me to check for clearance levels."
"I apparently need more information," Carol said, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. "Because I want to rant and rave, but I know I shouldn't, and until I have all the pieces I don't know if I can approach this rationally anymore. Though at least I can appreciate that I got my violent urges taken care of this morning, so I haven't broken anything. Yet."
Taylor blinked as a message came through her Maul phone. Anonymous, but validated by the box moving snark poking into the kitchen. How in the world were they monitoring things? "Hey Vicky, go grab the box in the kitchen. And probably some pens."
Everyone turned to look at Taylor, before Vicky apparently decided to go with it and got up. A moment later she returned with one of the PRT's secure paperwork boxes. "Where did this come from?"
"I think it contains your NDAs to learn more."
"But how did it get into the kitchen?"
"The box-moving snark is sneaky that way."
"How do I open it?"
"By...I'm not sure. They vary?" Another anonymous message appeared in her phone. "Oh, apparently they tied it to Carol, so she has to put her hand on the box."
Vicky dropped the box on Carol's lap, then left the room again. Carol opened the box and started looking through the papers inside of it, with Vicky returning a moment later with a handful of pens.
Taylor turned to Amy. "I don't suppose we can start on dinner while they're looking over paperwork?"
"I'm not comfortable with anyone signing this without checking it all," Carol said. "So yes, go ahead and eat while I do so."
The rest of them looked at each other and shrugged. Vicky and Mark went to grab some things from the kitchen while Amy led Taylor into the dining room.
Carol took the better part of an hour to make it through verifying the paperwork, and then she ate while Mark and Vicky read their copies. Eventually everyone had read and signed their paperwork, and Taylor checked that everything looked to be in order before the paperwork was returned to the box.
"So what do we do with the box?" Carol asked, gesturing to the now sealed box sitting on the coffee table. "I've never seen one of them delivered or picked up, but this is also the first one I've seen outside of a PRT building."
"I think the box-moving snark waits for nobody to be looking," Taylor answered. "But I don't know if that is because it has to or because it likes being mysterious."
"You're sure it isn't tinkertech?"
"Fairly certain. If it is nobody knows who makes that piece, or that it exists in general."
Vicky got an odd look on her face. A moment later she grabbed the blanket kept folded on the back of the couch and draped it over the box. "There, now we can't..."
Everyone stared at the collapsing point in the middle of the blanket where the box had been a moment before. Apparently it had dropped into the table somehow. The blanket was quickly removed, to show an undamaged table.
"I'm thinking it's playing with us," Taylor commented. "Or perhaps me, supposedly they stick around longer normally, but since I started noticing the things coming and going they have been teasing me."
"That does seem to be a tad odd," Amy agreed. "I wonder when their new phones will show up?"
Taylor jumped and dove behind the couch, only to come up growling with a cardboard box. "Damn snark."
"What's in the box?" Vicky asked.
"I think your new phones, which would imply they were ready for all of this. The note attached to the box stating 'Nine primer document preloaded, have a nice day' would appear to agree."
"The fact it is a cardboard box and not a tinkertech one implies you are right about it not being tinkertech moving them around," Mark pointed out. "Did they happen to label the phones?"
Taylor handed the box to Vicky, who dug out a phone box with a 'V' on it. She then handed Mark one with an 'M', and Carol one with a 'C'. Amy then took the now-empty cardboard box from Vicky, who seemed more interested in unboxing her new phone.
"This looks like a standard internal PRT shipping box," Amy commented. "With a preprinted 'care of' label already attached for New Wave's liaison. Which implies they were originally intending to ship it normally."
"I bet the box-moving snark's human thought it would be amusing to screw with me further," Taylor grumbled. "Though I suppose they also might have just known that it would be easier to explain things this way, if they hadn't known when things would go down."
"Want to see my latest creations?" Amy asked, gesturing towards the back of the house and, presumably, her greenhouse. "Let them do their thing in private?"
"Sure, why not."
Amy had an entire table of rainbow rose bushes, which she had explained was because the 'trial run' had generated more interest than expected. She also had a collection of seeds she was allowing to grow 'naturally', which was still unnaturally fast provided enough water, nutrients, and a good source of light were all available.
Outside of rainbow rose bushes she had also started experimenting with making rainbow tulips. They were similar enough for most of her previous work on the rose bushes to still be valid, but different enough that she had needed to figure some things out again. In particular, it was through some of her work on the tulips that she thought she had figured out how to make the rose bush seeds work.
"Are you going to be using rainbows as your signature on plants?" Taylor asked after the lengthy description of things. "Or do you plan on branching out to other things?"
"I considered some better fruits or vegetables," Amy admitted. "But the PRT testing requirements for edible bio-tinker creations are insane. I've got some bamboo on order to see if I can make a strong, fast-growing building material of sorts, and I wasn't planning on any rainbows in that at all."
Taylor's consideration of that idea was interrupted by yelling coming from the house. The two girls shared a look, before rushing back inside to see what was going on. They found Carol pacing back and forth yelling incomprehensibly. After a few minutes of that she visibly calmed herself down, taking deep breaths, before growling and storming into the kitchen.
"She didn't take things well?" Taylor offered.
"I think that was a rant on the idiocy of the general population," Mark replied. "Maybe. Her technique for being intentionally incomprehensible has improved. She seemed somewhat ok with the Nine stuff at first?"
"Intentionally incomprehensible?"
"She's a lawyer and can't always rant normally for legal reasons."
"So, er, Taylor?" Vicky called from the couch, sounding quite a bit more nervous than normal. Taylor turned to look at her, even as Carol returned from the kitchen with a six-pack of beer. "How close did I come to being visited by Jack Slash instead of Jacob after I punched you?"
"What are you talking about?" Carol asked, putting the beer down on the table. "Why would you expect Jack to show up instead of Jacob?"
"Powers run in families, but have variations. Taylor and Jack both project force in similar ways and this primer confirms that they both communicate with powers on some level. Slap some fake facial hair on Jacob and mess up his hair and he's a dead ringer for Jack."
Carol looked at Taylor, who shrugged. "You've already signed the NDAs. Nobody can blame me if you figure out civilian identities yourselves."
"I find myself confused as to how you were bullied at all at Winslow," Carol finally said, taking a beer and dropping back into her chair. "Even without that particular revelation, your uncle's civilian reputation would have stopped it all."
"I never even told my best friend about him. I didn't want to be treated differently just because my uncle was famous, and invoking him seemed like a cop-out otherwise. Besides, then he couldn't have used his visits to get away from being famous. He tended to wear a wig when he went out with us just to make it harder to identify him."
"As for your question," Amy said. "I think the only thing that saved Brockton Bay from being visited by the Nine was the fact that Taylor wasn't dead. An attack could very well have caused enough chaos to finish her off in the state she was in."
"So the Nine were co-opted as a therapy group," Carol said. "Because sometimes the needs powers give would otherwise force capes into pure villainy. I don't like it, but I can see why it was done. Kinda. If I squint. Why can't that be made public?"
"Did you finish reading things?" Mark asked, only to get a look from Carol. "At the end it explained that they also get pointed at people that keep escaping justice and are used as a disruption to expose corruption. The number of criminals arrested once they leave areas these days apparently isn't a coincidence."
"Why do I think this is a backroom response to Congress being idiots and not fixing the broken laws surrounding the PRT and Protectorate?"
"So you were ranting about the public and not villains?" Taylor asked. "I thought it would be the other way around?"
"I've just been told, basically, that the Nine are only villains because of public perception not letting them be anything else. Just another blow to my worldview, but I've gotten good at handling those recently. The fact that public perception of parahumans coupled with the way the laws were worded makes the Nine necessary is what is pissing me off right now."
"Still want to encourage me to sue Bonesaw?"
"I imagine your father knew who was going to be working on you?"
"Yep."
"Then no, at this point I don't think that would be wise anymore. I don't suppose you know if the Nine engineered the prison break earlier today?"
Taylor blinked. "I think I missed something."
"The correctional facility in Danbury ended up having a tinkertech something plow through it. A full third of the inmates, including all the parahuman inmates, are either dead or escaped."
"I guess I hadn't checked the news, as I didn't know about that." Taylor absently popped a question about that off to her uncle, because she was curious. "Don't they usually leave prisons alone?" And, as an afterthought, she popped a second message off to him to let him know that all of the Dallon household knew about the Jacob/Jack link.
"There is that, yes. Nobody had details when I caught it earlier, and the Nine aren't supposed to have the right kind of tinker for whatever it was. But they are also believed to have at least one new member, so additional new members isn't as unexpected as it would usually be."
"They love targeting escapees though," Vicky said. "Which kinda makes more sense now than it did before, actually."
Everyone sat in silence for a few minutes, then Taylor got a text message. From Riley. "Huh. Bonesaw says the prison break wasn't their doing? Some visiting tinker tried to hit the Siberian with stuff. They've been busy rounding up the escapees since, because people complain less when you experiment on them. She's hoping to get a working Bluetooth setup in someone else's brain this time?"
"At least she gets to experiment," Amy grumbled. "I still can't make heads or tails of yours due to not being cleared for the documentation on how it works."
"If you ask nicely maybe they'll let you look at whomever it is she gets it working in?"
Carol groaned. "Please don't talk about that around me. I'm having enough trouble with this without you talking about that kind of thing."
"The female side of the PRT would prefer she focus on figuring out the 'so light you missed it' periods anyway."
"Not until I get them," Amy snapped. "Bad enough you got them already, everyone else gets to wait."
"You already know how, don't you?"
Amy glared at Taylor. "Yes, but I have no clue how to apply it to myself. Even with help."
"So all we need to do is find a way to apply what you already know how to do to yourself?"
"Technically, yes?"
"I wonder if linking you up with Countdown would work?"
Amy paused to think about that. Carol turned to Mark. "When, exactly, did our lives become this odd?"
"About when we triggered," Mark answered, shrugging. "I mean, everyone in the room frequently violates the laws of physics as we understand them, pretty much on a daily basis really."
Carol sighed and finished off the can of beer she had started, then debated grabbing another one.
Taylor pulled into the garage at home, apparently having made it there before her father. An hour's discussion had resulted in Amy deciding she wouldn't trust one of Vivian's single-use devices to upgrade anyone, especially not herself. Biology was too complex and there were too many variables involved. If only Amy wasn't so adamant about wanting to get some of the upgrades for herself first.
She mentally swore about stupid rules about not trolling people with ridiculous access requirements for things that were impossible to get as she closed the garage door. Until Amy was likely to be on board with things she had no reason to bring up her plans for ridiculous clearance requirements. Even if the humor might change Amy's mind, because Taylor didn't want to try and bribe Amy in that way. Much better if she could find some way to bribe Amy with 'agree, and we can upgrade you first' after all.
A quick check of things showed that after a couple of seconds the water did start clearing up, so Taylor went down to the basement and ran the sink there until things were clear, then restored water flow to the water heater and turned it back on. She then ensured that the brown water was no longer flowing anywhere else in the house, which included deciding to run the washing machine through an empty cycle. She'd do actual laundry later. In the kitchen she also rinsed the soda can her father had left covered in brown residue.
A few hours later she had finished various chores, read over some of the news she had missed, gone through more information and forms, and locked up before bed. She wasn't expecting her father home, no matter what he might have said, because the promised pizza from Kurt almost certainly came with alcohol, and Lacey wouldn't let her father drive home drunk. She'd likely see her father the following evening, depending on how long things ran at the PRT.
Sunday morning Taylor was awoken not by an alarm or phone call, but by the garage door opening. This confused her, so she threw on a pair of her 'civilian' gloves as she went downstairs.
"Morning Taylor," Danny said as he came in from the garage. "Sorry if I woke you."
"Morning," Taylor replied. "Why are you home this early?"
"No water heater means very cold showers. Please tell me that you being here means the water is fine?"
"Yep. I even did a load of laundry last night, though I don't think they would want us drinking or cooking with it yet at a minimum. And I stuck to some of the towels we use for spills and such for the load of laundry."
"Good. I'm going to go take a proper shower, then, even if I'll want to take another one later to deal with lingering stuff in the water. Unless there's anything important you think I should know from yesterday?"
"Um, the Dallons all know about the Nine now? That's about it, I think."
Danny stared at Taylor for a moment, then shook his head. "I might decide to ask more about that later. Don't care enough right now. Why are you wearing gloves in the house?"
Taylor raised an eyebrow, then projected a light flick against her father's forehead. He facepalmed, groaned, and waved her off as he made his way upstairs. Taylor decided that if she was up anyway she might as well make something to eat, and then perhaps she'd go to the PRT early to hit the gym.
An hour later it appeared her father had gone to bed after his shower, so Taylor gathered her things and left.
The gym had been deserted, so Taylor exercised in peace. She then changed into her costume and hunted down some waffles for a second breakfast before wandering back to the Wards area. Once there she poked around PHO for a bit, wishing she could get into the armory for some dummy grenades to test her air cannon with instead, before noticing Colin was approaching.
Taylor got up and turned to the door as Colin opened it. "Good morning Armsmaster."
"Good morning Maul," Colin replied as he entered. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"Just browsing PHO while waiting for Missy and/or Miss Militia to come by, but I don't expect either of them for the next hour or so at least."
"Good. I was hoping we could talk for a few minutes." Colin then pulled some papers from a compartment on his armor. "Oh, and here's the printed copy of your assignment back, one of the scientists had it with them when they left yesterday and returned it to me when they were done."
Taylor took the papers, having forgotten about them, and slipped them into one of her jacket's pockets. "Thanks. What did you want to talk about?"
"Your decision to 'link' the powers of those fighting against Lung yesterday. While it was apparently helpful and did not interfere with testing Lung's powers, and in fact may have enhanced that testing, it was also irresponsible to do so without warning or prior discussion. At the same time, however, the scientists think some of the issue is that you are only linking powers together like that during the tinker fugues, and possibly with Panacea and Oni Lee earlier in the week. It is a use of your power that you aren't taking advantage of normally, and as far as we can tell yesterday was your first combat use of the ability."
"Which probably means I've had a growing subconscious itch to do something like that. Damn it. I thought I had a handle on what my snark was pushing me to do."
"I've asked Miss Militia to brief the other Wards on things. The current recommendation is that you use that particular ability whenever you are on patrol with two or more others that agree to it. Barring exceptional circumstances you should be asking before doing so, if only so that those involved know that sudden otherwise unexplained instinctual drives are to be expected."
"Because otherwise they could be looking for a master affecting them. Right."
"There won't be any punishment this time, due to the likely subconscious buildup."
"Er, thank you."
"Now then, I don't suppose you would be willing to help test something that occurred to me this morning?"
Taylor tilted her head as she wondered what he could possibly need her help testing. "I guess, but I'm not sure what I could help with?"
"I'm wondering if your SL10 access allows you to tap into my helmet or workshop without my authorization."
"How would I even try that?"
Colin seemed stunned for a moment, before he sighed. "Of course you wouldn't know how, or possibly even have the software installed. You have no need for it normally. Well then, I suppose we should start there."
The next half hour was taken up with installing and configuring remote access software, finding out that it allowed for a lot of access to things Taylor didn't know she could access in the process. Like every Console in the city, with or without informing the people running them that she was watching, but that was apparently expected as any Protectorate or Ward member with SL6 or better could do that.
She couldn't access pretty much anyone's personal equipment, which included Colin's helmet and workshop. Which pleased Colin, before he then granted her access to the workshop anyway.
"Why do you want me to have access to your workshop?" Taylor asked, after they confirmed that she could now connect to it. "I mean, I'm honored and all, but why me?"
"All tinkers with private workshops are supposed to have multiple local people trusted with access, if only to help get the tinker out in case of emergency. When possible it is another tinker, who can hopefully avoid catastrophic failures of things. I had Kid Win as my primary emergency access until Countdown joined. Unfortunately, Countdown should replace Kid Win due to being a Protectorate member of equal or greater clearance. I don't trust her enough at this time for personal reasons. Your clearance trumps hers despite your Ward status, and your powers would allow you even better understanding of how to not set off my own technology so long as I am still alive in the lab."
"And you trust me more than you trust Countdown?"
"I was, admittedly, unsure about that until yesterday. But if Dragon trusts you to the degree she apparently does then I feel you are trustworthy enough. As a side benefit, I can now use this to metaphorically tweak Countdown's nose by leaving Kid Win as my secondary, since the normal rules and regulations only specify the stricter rules for the primary."
"So, how likely is it that she will do the same to keep you out of her stuff?"
"At this time I outrank her, so she isn't allowed to lock me out at all. I will be recommending that she use you as her own secondary, however. Your ability to likely safely navigate her own workspace to extract her would be invaluable in an emergency. It will be up to her to decide either way, and she may or may not inform you of her decision."
"So unless I am told otherwise I should be prepared to be called in to help get either of you out of your own labs?"
"In essence, yes. Now then, unless you have any other questions for me I will take my leave."
"I think I'm good. Have a nice day."
"You too."
Taylor watched Colin leave, and wondered if she should feel guilty about the fact that Dragon probably couldn't distrust her right now. Which meant that it was almost like an indirect lie to Colin, but to reveal that would require revealing things about Dragon that weren't her place to reveal. Then again, the rest of the arguments for her being able to get him out of his workshop were sound, and part of the access he made sure she had was the 'emergency stop' function to kill his equipment.
She also suspected that he had been looking for an excuse he could use to get out of leaving Vivian with any access to his workshop, and may have gone this route anyway as a result. She certainly wasn't sure how much she would trust Vivian with her own stuff, even if Vivian was learning that she wasn't necessarily smarter than any other given individual.
Taylor spent the rest of the time she was waiting for Missy to arrive poking around the rules and regulations, wondering what tinkers who didn't have other tinkers around were supposed to do in regards to the whole emergency access to the workshop bit. In the end she came to the conclusion that it fell into one of two categories. Who outranks them, and who they trust. They didn't even need to pick a parahuman when no parahuman had powers that would let them navigate the tinkertech better than a normal human was available locally. Why there were rules about who outranked who when such parahumans were available but not when they weren't she wasn't sure.
In the end Taylor only qualified at all due to her trump rating, which both let her check with the tinker's snark and had helped ensure she had bullshit level clearance to things. Without that combination Colin wouldn't be able to argue that she 'outranked' Vivian according to the rules at all.
"Hi Carol," Taylor replied. "Mark, Vicky."
"Hello Taylor," Mark said, even as Vicky just gave Taylor an odd look.
"So, Taylor," Carol said as she closed, and for some reason locked, the door. "Before dinner I'd like to talk with you about some things."
"Alright," Taylor said as she shared a look with Amy. "What kind of things?"
"The kind of things it took calling Dragon to check your clearance on, as it seems nobody in Brockton Bay was cleared to check. I almost tried calling Chief Director Costa-Brown instead, but I already had Dragon's number."
Whelp, so much for their planning. Still, perhaps she could get an amusing reaction anyway? "Does this have anything to do with the file Amy recently gave you?"
"Yes, it does. How do you know about that?"
"Did you think to ask her if she could check my clearance on it?"
"I couldn't without trying to give her a copy, by the way," Amy replied as Carol imitated a fish. "But I could have told you that Taylor got the file out of the PRT's system for me to share with you in the first place."
Carol looked between the two before facepalming. "Of course she did. Because you had already told us you couldn't do it yourself, so obviously you had help. And since it involved her anyway she was the most likely person to be able to get it."
"I kinda assumed Taylor already knew," Vicky said as she came back from the kitchen. "Probably not the best assumption, but Amy didn't say someone was looking into the stuff in the file, like if she was going to be helping to figure them out. Since she outright told us they were the basis for Taylor's enhancements I figured that she had to have permission from Taylor to tell us."
"I see," Carol said, gesturing to the living room. "Perhaps we should sit down instead of discussing this in the hall. And at least I can take comfort that Dragon was able to inform me that Mister Hebert isn't cleared for the file, so it probably wasn't a complete waste of time."
Huh. Taylor pondered the fact her father wasn't allowed to see the file as they entered the living room. Mark joined them as they all sat down, with Taylor ending up between Amy and Vicky on the couch. Carol and Mark were in their own chairs, with Mark looking interested and Carol looking like she was doing her best to not be angry, but failing. Amy was worried, and Vicky was contemplative? Taylor was doing her best not to poke their snarks for potential info on their thought processes. Well, except for Amy's, but Broadcast Administrator and Shaper almost constantly talked about things when Amy was in range.
"Taylor," Carol continued. "I don't know whose idea it was to use you as a guinea pig for duplicating or improving on that research, and I don't know who signed off on it, but I don't think it should have ever happened to a minor. I'm willing to work with you and your father to see justice done in this case."
That...was not what Taylor was expecting. How was she supposed to respond to that?
"Mom," Vicky said, leaning forward. "You're an idiot. Everyone in the house knows that Amy was involved in Taylor getting her enhancements, in part due to your drunken ranting a couple of times. The only way I can see Amy going along with it in the first place was if there was somehow something seriously wrong with Taylor that she couldn't fix or if she expected things to go ok. In the latter case that would mean that Amy was already familiar with the other tinker or tinkers and the work they would be doing."
"Victoria has a point," Mark said. "In fact, the two of us discussed some of this already, and things keep falling into place to explain our conclusions."
"I find myself wondering what your conclusions are," Taylor said. "Because it seems like the two of you put some thought into it?"
Mark gestured to Vicky, who sighed and leaned back. "Ok, this is kinda spread out a bit. The first evidence was when Amy was called out to fix one of Bonesaw's patients. We weren't supposed to know that, but she needed permission to skip school and it came up. She kept a good act going, but after that her supposed 'hatred' of the Nine had vanished. I couldn't figure out why at the time, but it had been bugging me."
"I had noticed some of that myself," Carol admitted. "And I'm ashamed to admit that, at the time, I saw it as part of descending into villainy or something like that."
"Yeah, well, then Amy ends up doing her fugue thing with Taylor somehow, and the next day I briefly meet their new friend. The more I learn about what Taylor's upgrades do the more I wonder about said friend, whom I haven't seen again. Then Amy showed us that information, and all of a sudden I'm realizing that 'friend' looked a lot like Bonesaw might in normal clothes and a hat."
"I am getting some very disturbing ideas here," Carol warned.
"Mom, near as I can figure, either Bonesaw has a close, similar-looking family member with a similar power, which I don't think would cause Amy's view of things to change much, or the Nine aren't what they seem and that was Bonesaw. Either way I know I don't have all the information."
"We figured this was a test to see if we could be given more of the information we don't have," Mark added. "One that I'm not sure you passed, dear. Though at least we now know what you were likely trying to do while the two of us chatted, it never occurred to me to check for clearance levels."
"I apparently need more information," Carol said, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. "Because I want to rant and rave, but I know I shouldn't, and until I have all the pieces I don't know if I can approach this rationally anymore. Though at least I can appreciate that I got my violent urges taken care of this morning, so I haven't broken anything. Yet."
Taylor blinked as a message came through her Maul phone. Anonymous, but validated by the box moving snark poking into the kitchen. How in the world were they monitoring things? "Hey Vicky, go grab the box in the kitchen. And probably some pens."
Everyone turned to look at Taylor, before Vicky apparently decided to go with it and got up. A moment later she returned with one of the PRT's secure paperwork boxes. "Where did this come from?"
"I think it contains your NDAs to learn more."
"But how did it get into the kitchen?"
"The box-moving snark is sneaky that way."
"How do I open it?"
"By...I'm not sure. They vary?" Another anonymous message appeared in her phone. "Oh, apparently they tied it to Carol, so she has to put her hand on the box."
Vicky dropped the box on Carol's lap, then left the room again. Carol opened the box and started looking through the papers inside of it, with Vicky returning a moment later with a handful of pens.
Taylor turned to Amy. "I don't suppose we can start on dinner while they're looking over paperwork?"
"I'm not comfortable with anyone signing this without checking it all," Carol said. "So yes, go ahead and eat while I do so."
The rest of them looked at each other and shrugged. Vicky and Mark went to grab some things from the kitchen while Amy led Taylor into the dining room.
Carol took the better part of an hour to make it through verifying the paperwork, and then she ate while Mark and Vicky read their copies. Eventually everyone had read and signed their paperwork, and Taylor checked that everything looked to be in order before the paperwork was returned to the box.
"So what do we do with the box?" Carol asked, gesturing to the now sealed box sitting on the coffee table. "I've never seen one of them delivered or picked up, but this is also the first one I've seen outside of a PRT building."
"I think the box-moving snark waits for nobody to be looking," Taylor answered. "But I don't know if that is because it has to or because it likes being mysterious."
"You're sure it isn't tinkertech?"
"Fairly certain. If it is nobody knows who makes that piece, or that it exists in general."
Vicky got an odd look on her face. A moment later she grabbed the blanket kept folded on the back of the couch and draped it over the box. "There, now we can't..."
Everyone stared at the collapsing point in the middle of the blanket where the box had been a moment before. Apparently it had dropped into the table somehow. The blanket was quickly removed, to show an undamaged table.
"I'm thinking it's playing with us," Taylor commented. "Or perhaps me, supposedly they stick around longer normally, but since I started noticing the things coming and going they have been teasing me."
"That does seem to be a tad odd," Amy agreed. "I wonder when their new phones will show up?"
Taylor jumped and dove behind the couch, only to come up growling with a cardboard box. "Damn snark."
"What's in the box?" Vicky asked.
"I think your new phones, which would imply they were ready for all of this. The note attached to the box stating 'Nine primer document preloaded, have a nice day' would appear to agree."
"The fact it is a cardboard box and not a tinkertech one implies you are right about it not being tinkertech moving them around," Mark pointed out. "Did they happen to label the phones?"
Taylor handed the box to Vicky, who dug out a phone box with a 'V' on it. She then handed Mark one with an 'M', and Carol one with a 'C'. Amy then took the now-empty cardboard box from Vicky, who seemed more interested in unboxing her new phone.
"This looks like a standard internal PRT shipping box," Amy commented. "With a preprinted 'care of' label already attached for New Wave's liaison. Which implies they were originally intending to ship it normally."
"I bet the box-moving snark's human thought it would be amusing to screw with me further," Taylor grumbled. "Though I suppose they also might have just known that it would be easier to explain things this way, if they hadn't known when things would go down."
"Want to see my latest creations?" Amy asked, gesturing towards the back of the house and, presumably, her greenhouse. "Let them do their thing in private?"
"Sure, why not."
Amy had an entire table of rainbow rose bushes, which she had explained was because the 'trial run' had generated more interest than expected. She also had a collection of seeds she was allowing to grow 'naturally', which was still unnaturally fast provided enough water, nutrients, and a good source of light were all available.
Outside of rainbow rose bushes she had also started experimenting with making rainbow tulips. They were similar enough for most of her previous work on the rose bushes to still be valid, but different enough that she had needed to figure some things out again. In particular, it was through some of her work on the tulips that she thought she had figured out how to make the rose bush seeds work.
"Are you going to be using rainbows as your signature on plants?" Taylor asked after the lengthy description of things. "Or do you plan on branching out to other things?"
"I considered some better fruits or vegetables," Amy admitted. "But the PRT testing requirements for edible bio-tinker creations are insane. I've got some bamboo on order to see if I can make a strong, fast-growing building material of sorts, and I wasn't planning on any rainbows in that at all."
Taylor's consideration of that idea was interrupted by yelling coming from the house. The two girls shared a look, before rushing back inside to see what was going on. They found Carol pacing back and forth yelling incomprehensibly. After a few minutes of that she visibly calmed herself down, taking deep breaths, before growling and storming into the kitchen.
"She didn't take things well?" Taylor offered.
"I think that was a rant on the idiocy of the general population," Mark replied. "Maybe. Her technique for being intentionally incomprehensible has improved. She seemed somewhat ok with the Nine stuff at first?"
"Intentionally incomprehensible?"
"She's a lawyer and can't always rant normally for legal reasons."
"So, er, Taylor?" Vicky called from the couch, sounding quite a bit more nervous than normal. Taylor turned to look at her, even as Carol returned from the kitchen with a six-pack of beer. "How close did I come to being visited by Jack Slash instead of Jacob after I punched you?"
"What are you talking about?" Carol asked, putting the beer down on the table. "Why would you expect Jack to show up instead of Jacob?"
"Powers run in families, but have variations. Taylor and Jack both project force in similar ways and this primer confirms that they both communicate with powers on some level. Slap some fake facial hair on Jacob and mess up his hair and he's a dead ringer for Jack."
Carol looked at Taylor, who shrugged. "You've already signed the NDAs. Nobody can blame me if you figure out civilian identities yourselves."
"I find myself confused as to how you were bullied at all at Winslow," Carol finally said, taking a beer and dropping back into her chair. "Even without that particular revelation, your uncle's civilian reputation would have stopped it all."
"I never even told my best friend about him. I didn't want to be treated differently just because my uncle was famous, and invoking him seemed like a cop-out otherwise. Besides, then he couldn't have used his visits to get away from being famous. He tended to wear a wig when he went out with us just to make it harder to identify him."
"As for your question," Amy said. "I think the only thing that saved Brockton Bay from being visited by the Nine was the fact that Taylor wasn't dead. An attack could very well have caused enough chaos to finish her off in the state she was in."
"So the Nine were co-opted as a therapy group," Carol said. "Because sometimes the needs powers give would otherwise force capes into pure villainy. I don't like it, but I can see why it was done. Kinda. If I squint. Why can't that be made public?"
"Did you finish reading things?" Mark asked, only to get a look from Carol. "At the end it explained that they also get pointed at people that keep escaping justice and are used as a disruption to expose corruption. The number of criminals arrested once they leave areas these days apparently isn't a coincidence."
"Why do I think this is a backroom response to Congress being idiots and not fixing the broken laws surrounding the PRT and Protectorate?"
"So you were ranting about the public and not villains?" Taylor asked. "I thought it would be the other way around?"
"I've just been told, basically, that the Nine are only villains because of public perception not letting them be anything else. Just another blow to my worldview, but I've gotten good at handling those recently. The fact that public perception of parahumans coupled with the way the laws were worded makes the Nine necessary is what is pissing me off right now."
"Still want to encourage me to sue Bonesaw?"
"I imagine your father knew who was going to be working on you?"
"Yep."
"Then no, at this point I don't think that would be wise anymore. I don't suppose you know if the Nine engineered the prison break earlier today?"
Taylor blinked. "I think I missed something."
"The correctional facility in Danbury ended up having a tinkertech something plow through it. A full third of the inmates, including all the parahuman inmates, are either dead or escaped."
"I guess I hadn't checked the news, as I didn't know about that." Taylor absently popped a question about that off to her uncle, because she was curious. "Don't they usually leave prisons alone?" And, as an afterthought, she popped a second message off to him to let him know that all of the Dallon household knew about the Jacob/Jack link.
"There is that, yes. Nobody had details when I caught it earlier, and the Nine aren't supposed to have the right kind of tinker for whatever it was. But they are also believed to have at least one new member, so additional new members isn't as unexpected as it would usually be."
"They love targeting escapees though," Vicky said. "Which kinda makes more sense now than it did before, actually."
Everyone sat in silence for a few minutes, then Taylor got a text message. From Riley. "Huh. Bonesaw says the prison break wasn't their doing? Some visiting tinker tried to hit the Siberian with stuff. They've been busy rounding up the escapees since, because people complain less when you experiment on them. She's hoping to get a working Bluetooth setup in someone else's brain this time?"
"At least she gets to experiment," Amy grumbled. "I still can't make heads or tails of yours due to not being cleared for the documentation on how it works."
"If you ask nicely maybe they'll let you look at whomever it is she gets it working in?"
Carol groaned. "Please don't talk about that around me. I'm having enough trouble with this without you talking about that kind of thing."
"The female side of the PRT would prefer she focus on figuring out the 'so light you missed it' periods anyway."
"Not until I get them," Amy snapped. "Bad enough you got them already, everyone else gets to wait."
"You already know how, don't you?"
Amy glared at Taylor. "Yes, but I have no clue how to apply it to myself. Even with help."
"So all we need to do is find a way to apply what you already know how to do to yourself?"
"Technically, yes?"
"I wonder if linking you up with Countdown would work?"
Amy paused to think about that. Carol turned to Mark. "When, exactly, did our lives become this odd?"
"About when we triggered," Mark answered, shrugging. "I mean, everyone in the room frequently violates the laws of physics as we understand them, pretty much on a daily basis really."
Carol sighed and finished off the can of beer she had started, then debated grabbing another one.
Taylor pulled into the garage at home, apparently having made it there before her father. An hour's discussion had resulted in Amy deciding she wouldn't trust one of Vivian's single-use devices to upgrade anyone, especially not herself. Biology was too complex and there were too many variables involved. If only Amy wasn't so adamant about wanting to get some of the upgrades for herself first.
She mentally swore about stupid rules about not trolling people with ridiculous access requirements for things that were impossible to get as she closed the garage door. Until Amy was likely to be on board with things she had no reason to bring up her plans for ridiculous clearance requirements. Even if the humor might change Amy's mind, because Taylor didn't want to try and bribe Amy in that way. Much better if she could find some way to bribe Amy with 'agree, and we can upgrade you first' after all.
A quick check of things showed that after a couple of seconds the water did start clearing up, so Taylor went down to the basement and ran the sink there until things were clear, then restored water flow to the water heater and turned it back on. She then ensured that the brown water was no longer flowing anywhere else in the house, which included deciding to run the washing machine through an empty cycle. She'd do actual laundry later. In the kitchen she also rinsed the soda can her father had left covered in brown residue.
A few hours later she had finished various chores, read over some of the news she had missed, gone through more information and forms, and locked up before bed. She wasn't expecting her father home, no matter what he might have said, because the promised pizza from Kurt almost certainly came with alcohol, and Lacey wouldn't let her father drive home drunk. She'd likely see her father the following evening, depending on how long things ran at the PRT.
Sunday morning Taylor was awoken not by an alarm or phone call, but by the garage door opening. This confused her, so she threw on a pair of her 'civilian' gloves as she went downstairs.
"Morning Taylor," Danny said as he came in from the garage. "Sorry if I woke you."
"Morning," Taylor replied. "Why are you home this early?"
"No water heater means very cold showers. Please tell me that you being here means the water is fine?"
"Yep. I even did a load of laundry last night, though I don't think they would want us drinking or cooking with it yet at a minimum. And I stuck to some of the towels we use for spills and such for the load of laundry."
"Good. I'm going to go take a proper shower, then, even if I'll want to take another one later to deal with lingering stuff in the water. Unless there's anything important you think I should know from yesterday?"
"Um, the Dallons all know about the Nine now? That's about it, I think."
Danny stared at Taylor for a moment, then shook his head. "I might decide to ask more about that later. Don't care enough right now. Why are you wearing gloves in the house?"
Taylor raised an eyebrow, then projected a light flick against her father's forehead. He facepalmed, groaned, and waved her off as he made his way upstairs. Taylor decided that if she was up anyway she might as well make something to eat, and then perhaps she'd go to the PRT early to hit the gym.
An hour later it appeared her father had gone to bed after his shower, so Taylor gathered her things and left.
The gym had been deserted, so Taylor exercised in peace. She then changed into her costume and hunted down some waffles for a second breakfast before wandering back to the Wards area. Once there she poked around PHO for a bit, wishing she could get into the armory for some dummy grenades to test her air cannon with instead, before noticing Colin was approaching.
Taylor got up and turned to the door as Colin opened it. "Good morning Armsmaster."
"Good morning Maul," Colin replied as he entered. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"Just browsing PHO while waiting for Missy and/or Miss Militia to come by, but I don't expect either of them for the next hour or so at least."
"Good. I was hoping we could talk for a few minutes." Colin then pulled some papers from a compartment on his armor. "Oh, and here's the printed copy of your assignment back, one of the scientists had it with them when they left yesterday and returned it to me when they were done."
Taylor took the papers, having forgotten about them, and slipped them into one of her jacket's pockets. "Thanks. What did you want to talk about?"
"Your decision to 'link' the powers of those fighting against Lung yesterday. While it was apparently helpful and did not interfere with testing Lung's powers, and in fact may have enhanced that testing, it was also irresponsible to do so without warning or prior discussion. At the same time, however, the scientists think some of the issue is that you are only linking powers together like that during the tinker fugues, and possibly with Panacea and Oni Lee earlier in the week. It is a use of your power that you aren't taking advantage of normally, and as far as we can tell yesterday was your first combat use of the ability."
"Which probably means I've had a growing subconscious itch to do something like that. Damn it. I thought I had a handle on what my snark was pushing me to do."
"I've asked Miss Militia to brief the other Wards on things. The current recommendation is that you use that particular ability whenever you are on patrol with two or more others that agree to it. Barring exceptional circumstances you should be asking before doing so, if only so that those involved know that sudden otherwise unexplained instinctual drives are to be expected."
"Because otherwise they could be looking for a master affecting them. Right."
"There won't be any punishment this time, due to the likely subconscious buildup."
"Er, thank you."
"Now then, I don't suppose you would be willing to help test something that occurred to me this morning?"
Taylor tilted her head as she wondered what he could possibly need her help testing. "I guess, but I'm not sure what I could help with?"
"I'm wondering if your SL10 access allows you to tap into my helmet or workshop without my authorization."
"How would I even try that?"
Colin seemed stunned for a moment, before he sighed. "Of course you wouldn't know how, or possibly even have the software installed. You have no need for it normally. Well then, I suppose we should start there."
The next half hour was taken up with installing and configuring remote access software, finding out that it allowed for a lot of access to things Taylor didn't know she could access in the process. Like every Console in the city, with or without informing the people running them that she was watching, but that was apparently expected as any Protectorate or Ward member with SL6 or better could do that.
She couldn't access pretty much anyone's personal equipment, which included Colin's helmet and workshop. Which pleased Colin, before he then granted her access to the workshop anyway.
"Why do you want me to have access to your workshop?" Taylor asked, after they confirmed that she could now connect to it. "I mean, I'm honored and all, but why me?"
"All tinkers with private workshops are supposed to have multiple local people trusted with access, if only to help get the tinker out in case of emergency. When possible it is another tinker, who can hopefully avoid catastrophic failures of things. I had Kid Win as my primary emergency access until Countdown joined. Unfortunately, Countdown should replace Kid Win due to being a Protectorate member of equal or greater clearance. I don't trust her enough at this time for personal reasons. Your clearance trumps hers despite your Ward status, and your powers would allow you even better understanding of how to not set off my own technology so long as I am still alive in the lab."
"And you trust me more than you trust Countdown?"
"I was, admittedly, unsure about that until yesterday. But if Dragon trusts you to the degree she apparently does then I feel you are trustworthy enough. As a side benefit, I can now use this to metaphorically tweak Countdown's nose by leaving Kid Win as my secondary, since the normal rules and regulations only specify the stricter rules for the primary."
"So, how likely is it that she will do the same to keep you out of her stuff?"
"At this time I outrank her, so she isn't allowed to lock me out at all. I will be recommending that she use you as her own secondary, however. Your ability to likely safely navigate her own workspace to extract her would be invaluable in an emergency. It will be up to her to decide either way, and she may or may not inform you of her decision."
"So unless I am told otherwise I should be prepared to be called in to help get either of you out of your own labs?"
"In essence, yes. Now then, unless you have any other questions for me I will take my leave."
"I think I'm good. Have a nice day."
"You too."
Taylor watched Colin leave, and wondered if she should feel guilty about the fact that Dragon probably couldn't distrust her right now. Which meant that it was almost like an indirect lie to Colin, but to reveal that would require revealing things about Dragon that weren't her place to reveal. Then again, the rest of the arguments for her being able to get him out of his workshop were sound, and part of the access he made sure she had was the 'emergency stop' function to kill his equipment.
She also suspected that he had been looking for an excuse he could use to get out of leaving Vivian with any access to his workshop, and may have gone this route anyway as a result. She certainly wasn't sure how much she would trust Vivian with her own stuff, even if Vivian was learning that she wasn't necessarily smarter than any other given individual.
Taylor spent the rest of the time she was waiting for Missy to arrive poking around the rules and regulations, wondering what tinkers who didn't have other tinkers around were supposed to do in regards to the whole emergency access to the workshop bit. In the end she came to the conclusion that it fell into one of two categories. Who outranks them, and who they trust. They didn't even need to pick a parahuman when no parahuman had powers that would let them navigate the tinkertech better than a normal human was available locally. Why there were rules about who outranked who when such parahumans were available but not when they weren't she wasn't sure.
In the end Taylor only qualified at all due to her trump rating, which both let her check with the tinker's snark and had helped ensure she had bullshit level clearance to things. Without that combination Colin wouldn't be able to argue that she 'outranked' Vivian according to the rules at all.
- Location
- Canada
*sighs* Well, I guess it was too much to hope for that she'd be able to put all her prejudices aside so quickly.
... D'you think that Vicky got her self-control issues from Carol, perchance?
:lol Doormaker the troll, brilliant! He'd be a perfect accomplice for pranks, come to think about it. I shudder to think of what he and Taylor could do if they collaborated.
Ooh. Good idea there. How strong would she be able to make it though? There has to be some limit of biological enhancement, I imagine.
That sounds like a courtroom strategy, actually. Rant like that and you can slip quite a few things past people.
Said every parahuman ever.
Ohhh... I just thought of something. If she can do that with the locals against Lung, how about with the Triumvirate against an Endbringer? Only if her range gets large enough to encompass the battlefield though, or she'd be at risk.
*snorts* She's a hero and all, but at this point I actually trust LUNG more than I trust her.
- Location
- USA
Taylor getting trolled by Cauldron is hilarious. And the slow build up over the last while totally paid off when Taylor dove over the couch. And then Armsmaster of all people decides to troll Countdown a bit with the whole emergency contact thing (though it was mostly because it was just a better idea).
Mirriam Grave
The Bemused. The Amused. The Unstable.
- Location
- The edge of a point.
I try NOT to be that guy...
But this is too much for me not to point out.
Doesn't help that this IS my favorite Worm pairing...
EDIT: I was clearly talking about the Snarks.
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She needs to cross the bamboo with kudzu, increase the tensile strength by a factor of four, and make it give a sweet smelling rose like bloom.
In six months, not even endbringer would be able to penetrate that mess.
In six months, not even endbringer would be able to penetrate that mess.
- Location
- Phillips County, Colorado
You forgot to add the thorns of the Japanese rose.
What does being as durable as an 80's rock band have to do with it?
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
I can see it. Legion was clearly a QA/Shaper romance that just ended up dragging their hosts along for the ride.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Countdown is only a 'hero' because Taylor talked to her snark, and convinced it that "I can duplicate anything you can do with bombs" isn't proving it's superiority but "I can undo anything you can do, with bombs" is. She'd already had the bombs for the canon collage bombing set up. The fact she was that severely influenced by her shard would make Countdown IMO even less trustworthy. Heck, the woman was concerned about the severe mood swing she experienced after Taylor talked to her 'snark'.
Tisaku
Head Chief Thinkomancer
-Taylor needs to see if implanted titanium plates count as weapons.-
Dantalion
Insight: 365
- Location
- A Guest Room at the Brass Embassy, dying of Frenzy
- Pronouns
- Any
If they did, one would assume the force would be applied to the flesh they're implanted under first. Probably not the wisest move.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Likely wouldn't exactly work either since her fists don't count as a blunt weapon unless wearing armored gloves.