In early celebration of the upcoming "cliffhanger Friday" I've decided to post two chapters today. Huzzah! That means that another chapter is incoming shortly. No comment on the extra chapter lining things up for cliffhanger Friday.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Yes, two chapters.
We know you now. How many interludes in between?
Chapter 63
Dean ended up dragging Taylor out of her room for class, being the only one who realized she was even in there. They made their way down to the room their class was in, with the unknown snark nearby. But they weren't in the room, so Taylor left them alone for now. Though she was slightly curious as to why Brian was here; hadn't he been cleared?
"Good afternoon everyone," a PRT officer said. There were a number of extra personnel in the room today, actually, so it wasn't just Brian and the unknown snark as extras. "Today we were able to arrange for a special treat. We covered some multiple-opponent tactics over the previous five lessons, and today you get to actually try them."
"With a twist, of course," a second officer said. "Obviously we have a number of extra volunteers here, but we also have a nullifier available. You'll be getting some experience under worst-case conditions. Disoriented by your powers not working, multiple opponents, and generally without your normal equipment as well."
Taylor blinked, and decided to poke that snark after all as the PRT officer dealt with a sudden outburst from Dennis and Vivian.
Hello there!
[Shock]
Sorry, didn't mean to surprise you. Do you know if your human goes by the name 'Hatchet Face' at times?
[Agreement. Query]
I'm one of the students I think your human is going to turn powers off for in a few minutes.
"Now then," the PRT officer said, having gotten Dennis and Vivian to shut up with the point that if they could get a nullifier for training then it would be possible to run into one in the field. "Once we have your powers nullified you're permitted to do anything you're still capable of. So let's get started, shall we?"
A minute later Taylor felt odd. She could tell that she couldn't project blunt objects, and her sense of things within range of her skin was gone. On the other hand her snark-sense was only feeling a little fuzzy, except for Hatchet Face's snark. It was still sitting there fully clear. Inference Engine's 'voice' was a little indistinct, but still understandable as it complained about being locked down.
Am I supposed to be able to talk to Inference Engine while he's trying to block things?
<Data>
That was kinda indistinct itself, but also understandable. Apparently this was part of the 'communication bits are harder to shut down' stuff she had learned previously. Disrupt, yes. Disable, not so much. And apparently a general 'please stop working' signal was being sent out for more mental powers?
If he's got a 'please stop working' signal going, why are you still working?
<Disclosure>
Taylor blinked at that. Both the Broadcast and the Administrator permission sets were in agreement that Hatchet Face's snark didn't have the authority to tell them to turn off. Huh. Wasn't stopping the rest of the disruption, of course, which is probably what the fuzzy bit was, snarks being disrupted but not disconnected.
Taylor decided to look around at the others. Dinah appeared to be grinning and more focused. Well, she did have a power that fed way too much information to her brain normally, so removing that distraction could only help. Lisa looked neutral. Probably less info, balanced out by nothing bombarding her brain. Brian seemed unaffected, Missy had fallen over but was recovering. Carlos had fallen over and didn't seem to be making any effort to get up. Dennis was frowning slightly, but otherwise looked unaffected. Chris and Vivian both seemed to be unsettled? Dean had stumbled at first, but seemed fine now.
"Well then," the PRT officer said, looking over the group. "Let's go with Weathergirl first, then Countdown. We'll figure the Wards out afterwards."
Taylor watched as Dinah did a decent job against four 'attackers', taking advantage of her smaller stature. In fact, she did better than she usually did. Vivian ended up being pretty much equal to her normal performance. Dennis, Chris, and Brian showed they were unaffected by the lack of their powers, followed by Dean making a decent showing but still looking a little unnerved. Lisa did ok, but was noticeably less aware of things. That was balanced out by being more alert in general. Missy ended up doing fairly well, but seemed less aware of her surroundings. Finally, Carlos was still having trouble standing and didn't even bother trying to fight.
Which left Taylor, who had fairly deliberately been left for last. The reasoning for this became very obvious very quickly, as she demonstrated that she was still stronger than a normal human and easily overpowered everyone thrown at her as a result. It wasn't her fault that they had encouraged her to not hold back, right?
"Owww," one of the volunteers said as they got back to their feet after being thrown against one of the walls. "Are you immune to your powers being turned off?"
"There's a marked difference between a normal Brute and a Tinker Fugue Brute," one of the other, non-participating, PRT officers answered. "Maul's powers don't grant her a Brute rating, that comes from having been the target of a fugue. As such nullifiers don't render her down to 'normal human'. We saved her for last for a reason. Of course, part of that reason was to see if we were right about nullifiers not affecting her strength."
"Mind if I run a quick test of my own?" Taylor asked.
The PRT officers looked at each other, before shrugging. "If you want to try and overcome things then feel free."
Taylor smirked as she prepared her test.
I'm sorry, but I'd like to see if I can overload you.
[Shock. Astonishment]
Yes, I'm still working? Why wouldn't I be?
[Assertion]
My snark says you don't have the authority.
[...Acceptance. Query]
Well, I'll be trying to open enough connections that you can't communicate with your own human.
[Curiosity]
Taylor took that as 'permission to try'. Or at least 'acknowledgement' anyway.
<Additional Connections Established>
She waited as her snark opened connections. More and more of them opening to Hatchet Face's snark. Only to start feeling those extra connections closing.
Why are they closing?
<Data>
Huh. They're timing out due to lack of traffic, which you think is to reduce the amount of manual connection management needed. So they aren't being closed deliberately? Do we just need to open them faster?
<Consideration>
[Query]
Apparently opening things slowly isn't working. So we're going to try faster.
<Maximum Connections Established>
Taylor knew it had worked the instant all the fuzziness vanished and her awareness of suitable objects within range of her skin returned. Carlos actually popped into the air at the same time, apparently not expecting to suddenly be able to fly again. In the next room it seemed like Hatchet Face had fallen over.
[Complaint]
I told you what we were trying to do.
[Agreement. Annoyance]
It didn't take long for all of those connections to time out and close, though, causing the fuzziness to return and Carlos to fall back to the ground.
I think we need to find a way to force connections to stay open.
<Agreement. Contemplation>
"Goddamnit," Lisa grumbled, rubbing her temples. She looked like she was about to say more, before suddenly clamping down on the impulse. Inference Engine seemed proud of her, though, figuring out that the 'nullifier' had to be a parahuman if Taylor had just shut them down for a moment.
"I think we're done," one of the PRT officers said, waving to another to get Hatchet Face to stop nullifying their powers. A minute later everything snapped back to normal again, complete with Carlos going airborne again, though at least this time he kept himself to only a couple of feet.
They had all ended up making a quick trip through the hospital area to be checked over. Carlos had pretty much recovered by the time they got there, and Taylor hadn't had any issues in the first place. The rest of them got some bruise cream. After that they had all gone to dinner together, Dinah joining them for once.
Taylor was splitting her attention three ways. On one hand she was listening to the whining from Vivian and the male Wards about the nullifier, with Dinah counter-arguing that it had been wonderful and stating that she wanted a nullifier for relaxing at home. Missy merely commented that she had obviously been using her powers subconsciously to map out her surroundings, and had only noticed when that went away. Taylor would admit that Carlos was being intelligent, taking some of the blame for his own issues. Apparently he had intentionally 'pre-adapted' in ways that made him reliant on his power to function?
The second thread of attention was continuing to work on her research. She was wondering if the person who designed this set of studies had ever met a parahuman before coming up with them, given the methods they had used. Then again, it was also the first she had run into where they had accidentally caused someone to second-trigger. Why had they thought putting parahumans back into conditions like those they had triggered in would be a good idea anyway? And why had the parahumans volunteered?
The third thread was a very discreet argument with Lisa by virtue of Inference Engine being able to relay between them. Apparently Lisa was unhappy with Hatchet Face having been in the next room. She saw it as evidence that the Nine were all working for the PRT, but didn't have the full story because the primer couldn't be opened on her current phone. Apparently her new phone hadn't shown up yet and the console in the Wards area wasn't SL9 or higher rated. The new computers weren't even as high as the console, for that matter.
Though really, Lisa's real problem was that Taylor wasn't talking. And Taylor wasn't talking because she hadn't checked Lisa's security clearances yet. Which Lisa understood, but was still pissed about.
The Wards had made it back to the common area, and Taylor had loaned Lisa her tablet for an hour in 'guest mode', meaning Lisa had to log into everything herself. Lisa had promptly locked herself in her room to start looking things up, grumbling that she wouldn't be able to keep copies of anything until she got her new phone.
During that hour Taylor continued her own research, after deciding that being able to sit there with the visor on was too useful to limit to 'Maul' in the future. She wouldn't bring something like it to school, or really use it in public at all, but she'd ordered a transparent version of the thing for use at home. Too bad it would show up too late to be used during break.
Apparently, at least if Inference Engine's insights were anything to go by, Lisa was feeling like an idiot, while also being impressed that the PRT had kept a lid on things as well as they had. She also wanted to ask Riley a lot of questions? Huh. Oh well. Maybe she'd get to do so some day.
[Query]
No, she can't have my password to try and override the file-copy restrictions.
But perhaps not until she learned to keep better control over her snark.
Saturday morning Taylor glared at the light rain through the bus window. Stupid rain that made the moped less useful and drove people to not walk places. As such the bus was crowded enough to make it so that she couldn't research, given the potentially sensitive nature of a lot of the base information she was in the middle of. She wasn't even sure why she was heading into the PRT this morning, beyond a last-minute request for her presence. She was scheduled to meet with Jessica this afternoon instead of going on the sole evening patrol, and otherwise hadn't had anything scheduled. She could have declined, of course, but she didn't feel she had a good enough reason to.
Besides, she was curious, and it was a decent excuse to get out of being dragged out of the house to help Kurt and Lacey. Yes, she had enhanced strength. No, that wasn't a valid excuse to not use professionals when moving appliances into and out of houses.
Once she arrived at the PRT building she walked in the main entrance. She was asked to show up as Taylor today for some reason. Not sure why, but she got her visitor's pass and was 'escorted' into the rest of the building. Today's pass had been prepared ahead of time and was double-sided. One side said she was here as an 'Intern: Parahuman Consulting'. The other said she was here as a 'Bullshit Artist: Level 10'. She even checked once they were in the hallway and found that they registered as granting different access to the building. Well, the 'Bullshit Artist' side registered as being a copy of her ID card, really.
"So Taylor," the PRT officer said, after getting the snickering at the ID card out of his system. "You've been called in to play consulting therapist of sorts with a visiting cape, though I don't know who that is. Doctor Yamada will be there to observe. This is apparently a more formal version of your 'consult with people about their powers' bit that you've been doing with others."
Well, she had a general idea of what was going on now, given that Jessica was with Hatchet Face right now. And Miss Militia was the only other parahuman she could feel in the building, though Lisa was within her range. "Alright, where is this happening?"
"The usual office you would be using to meet with Doctor Yamada, but with the panel hiding the door to the rest of the floor removed so we can pass through without using the corner stairwell, same as we'd do for any Ward who needs to use the elevators, really. Not that we've needed to do that often with Panacea in town."
They lapsed into silence as they approached a group of other employees, not guaranteed to be aware of Taylor's Ward status.
"Ahh," Jessica said, getting up as Taylor entered the room, the PRT officer having left already. "Good morning Miss Hebert. I'm glad you could make it."
"Good morning Doctor Yamada," Taylor replied, figuring they were in 'formal' mode after the 'Miss Hebert' comment.
"Now then," Jessica continued, gesturing to where Hatchet Face was getting up. He was large, but surprisingly scar-free and had nearly shoulder-length hair. Perhaps he used fake scars as Hatchet Face? "Allow me to introduce you to Fred Boucher. Fred, meet Taylor Hebert."
"Nice to meet you," Fred said, shaking Taylor's hand. "You can call me Fred. Jacob and Riley speak quite highly of you."
"You can call me Taylor. As for Jacob and Riley, I'll admit that I haven't spoken to them much about you either way."
"Not surprising. Our relationship is usually quite professional."
"Now then," Jessica said, gesturing to where chairs were set up. "Taylor, Jacob originally recommended that you speak with Fred, for his benefit and as additional experience. To get him here it had to be an official recommendation instead of a casual visit, which means I need to remain present as you aren't actually licensed. Fred has signed the appropriate paperwork for this, but the final decision on whether or not to proceed lies with you. Though if you do agree we'll need to record the session, and you should be prepared to take your own notes. The latter can be done from the recording if you wish."
Taylor thought about it, and decided she wouldn't feel right if she said no. After all, she had a unique skill that could help here, right? "I don't think I have problem with that. Do you mind if I set my tablet up?"
Fred and Jessica looked at each other, before shrugging. Taylor took that as permission and pulled her tablet out of her bag, leaving the bag itself on the shelf. Jessica indicated that Taylor should take the seat directly opposite where Fred had been sitting, before taking the third seat that was off to the side and had what appeared to be her notebook next to it.
"Before we begin," Fred said as he sat down, getting Taylor's attention as she was setting her tablet on the table next to her seat. "I'd like to thank you for the novel experience yesterday. Before then I'd never had my own power disabled. Until then I had been unsure of doing this, but if you can do that to me then if I lose control I'm sure you can stop me."
"I probably can, yeah. Even if I don't do the power shutdown trick in the same way you do," Taylor admitted, correcting the angle of the tablet. "My method is a less reliable brute-force method."
"Hah! Good one there."
Taylor hadn't intended that as a joke, but she supposed it fit. "I'm just lucky that you can't stop me from using all of my powers."
"If you two are ready," Jessica said, placing a recorder on the table situated between them. Taylor looked at Fred, who nodded. "I'll record a preface for record-keeping purposes, then we can begin. I'll leave it to Taylor for the time being, to see how she approaches things." Taylor nodded, and Jessica hit the record button. "Doctor Jessica Yamada, presiding over an experimental session between Taylor Hebert and Fred Boucher on April 16th, 2011..."
Taylor made her way into the Wards area a few hours later. She wasn't sure how they had kept going that long, actually. Well, she knew that she'd been getting information from his snark, which she thought was actually closer to how her uncle usually operated. And his snark had been quite cooperative once they got going. Granted, she suspected her uncle couldn't ask for clarifications from snarks, but on the other hand she didn't think she even knew half of the tricks she had used to get Fred talking about topics.
She had provided Jessica with a copy of the notes she had been taking on her tablet, and was told she'd get a message with information on how to access the official record of the session should she want to review it later. Jacob would also be getting copies of everything as Fred's primary therapist.
What were you talking with Jessica's snark about, anyway? I was doing my best to ignore you while I dealt with Fred.
[...Admission]
You were grilling it on how Jessica operates as a therapist? Really? Why?
[Data]
It interests you and you think it will help me in the...is that how I knew half of those tricks? Because you were talking with Jessica's snark about them in the back of my mind?
Taylor didn't know if she should be annoyed with that revelation or not. She knew that she absorbed information that transferred between snarks, though not always well. Evidence of that included that she knew way too much about biology in general and brains more specifically thanks to Broadcast Administrator's talking with Shaper and later others, including the link-up for Oni Lee's snark. Though...
Have you talked to any other snarks about psychology?
[...Data]
Broadcast liked to talk about it when Jacob was around and we were all asleep? Really? I suppose he would have had issues keeping it clamped down while sleeping...
[Agreement]
Dammit, now she wasn't even sure if her interest in this direction was natural, or a result of her snark talking to other snarks. Then again, every other therapist she'd met so far was a parahuman pushed by their snark in some way, maybe that was just normal for the profession, at least when it came to parahumans?
Taylor had decided to change as an excuse to wear her visor and then take advantage of the reassembled and freshly-stocked kitchen area to do some cooking. Despite her reservations about whether or not her interest in things was natural she was also back on the research train. The end result was that she had an hour before her afternoon appointment with Jessica and a fairly large lasagna prepared for herself and the other Wards, whenever they showed up.
She served herself a sizable portion and grabbed a soda, continuing to look through her research materials. A focus change for the afternoon had been to pay more attention to looking for any studies on parahuman psychologists, parahumans or otherwise. So far she hadn't found any. Apparently studying each other wasn't a thing? Or maybe she was seeing a potential pattern that wasn't actually there. Her sample size was, at best, three after all.
Taylor was considering seconds when Missy arrived, following her nose over to the kitchen once she came in. "What's that?"
"Lasagna," Taylor replied. "Decided to partially distract myself by testing out the new ability to cook in here, and found that they did a very good job with initial supplies, provided you don't care about making dessert."
"I bet they make us buy our own dessert supplies, if only to stick to providing us with 'healthy' options. Can I have some lasagna?"
"Go for it. I made plenty. I'll finish cleaning up after my appointment."
Having said that, Taylor finished the last bit of her serving and rinsed the plate she had used off in the sink. Missy was eagerly digging into the lasagna by the time she left for her appointment. She made good time up to the office, and Jessica was waiting for her. With the panel covering the door to the rest of the floor, even. It wasn't like she didn't know it was there, so why were they hiding it?
"Hello again Taylor," Jessica said as Taylor dropped her visor on the shelf and hung the weaponless jacket up. "I'm sorry we took so much of your time earlier, that was unexpected. I didn't realize you'd been studying psychology and some of the tricks we use quite that well."
"I haven't been," Taylor replied, getting a look from Jessica. "My snark was grilling your snark in the background. I tend to try and ignore it when my snark wants to be chatty, but I still tend to pick up information. So I think I got a lot of the details of tricks from you, indirectly."
"That...huh. Well, it explains things. How much will you retain?"
"No clue. And my understanding on why they work is something I know I'm lacking in, so there's that. For that matter, I'm a little fuzzy on when to use them too, now that I've thought back on things."
"So any true evaluation of your therapist skills needs to be done with a non-parahuman observer. I'll make sure your file indicates that."
"I'd go with no parahumans with therapist training within four hundred meters of me just to be safe."
Jessica thought about that. "I can see how that would be preferable. Anything else you want to bring up from earlier, or shall we move on to you?"
"Funny thing, I'm no longer certain that any interest I've had in psychology was natural..."
Taylor felt much better after her talk with Jessica, at least on some of her less obvious urges. She rightfully pointed out that Taylor had been somewhat pointed toward being a therapist by the ability to talk to snarks at all, so it was actually quite likely she'd have ended up looking into it either way. They'd also discussed Sophia a bit, and how Taylor felt about what had happened to the other girl.
They'd actually ended with a chat about how annoying it was from both sides when the patient was aware of a number of the tricks the therapist was using, even if Taylor didn't know how they were all supposed to work.
Returning to the Wards area, Taylor found that the lasagna was apparently all gone and the remaining dishes and cleanup had been done.
"Hey Taylor," Dennis called from where he was running the console. "We kinda decided on a policy of those who enjoy the food do the cleanup. Just so you know. And thanks for making the lasagna, it was delicious."
"Er, yeah," Taylor said, stunned. "You're welcome?" It was nice, but unexpected.
Shaking her head, she made her way to get changed. She might as well go home, Jessica had even recommended relaxing without doing any more research for the night. She took her time changing, and on a whim decided to take a few minutes to rearrange her drawers. Which led to finding the two lockets she had gotten Missy to modify, and which Taylor had forgotten about.
Giving that some thought, she dropped them into her civilian jacket pocket, so they wouldn't get lost in a utility belt pouch and forgotten about for a bit. She'd have to see about wrapping them, and then one of them would require looking into how to get it delivered.
Arriving home, Taylor found her father passed out on the couch. With an ice pack strapped to his left foot. She quietly went upstairs, then called Lacey to find out what had happened.
"Hi Taylor," Lacey answered. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," Taylor replied. "I don't suppose you know what happened to my father's foot?"
"Kurt was drunk and goofing off and knocked his bowling ball off of the shelf it was improperly placed on."
"That...sounds painful. Good thing it's the weekend, I guess."
They spent the next hour catching up on various things while Taylor cleaned up some of her research-mess, not looking over anything longer than was required to drop it into the correct pile. The two lockets were dropped on her desk to keep them visible at first, and then she decided to check to see if they had any small boxes around to wrap them in. Lacey had to go around that point, but it didn't take long for Taylor to find some suitable empty boxes. Digging through the small collection she found two that were obviously designed for lockets, and ten minutes later she had those ready.
She spent the rest of the evening playing stupid games on her phone.
Sunday was yet another rainy day, which was getting ridiculous in many ways. The rain had let up for a few hours overnight, but the next front had hit the area at around eight in the morning. At least it still wasn't the heavy rain of a few days ago, since Taylor had a patrol in the afternoon.
She made breakfast for her father and washed the dishes, allowing him to relax with his injured foot, before heading out. She'd looked things up while eating her own breakfast and knew how to send one of the lockets out now, and was going to take care of that. Once that was done she'd hit the gym.
A nice long session in the gym, followed by a second breakfast and a visit to the junkyard, had Taylor feeling much less stressed for the time being. She topped that off with lunch and getting set up on the new sound system in the Wards common area. With all of that done she finally gave into her urges and got back to research.
An hour later Carlos and Dean showed up, and Lisa came over from her apartment. Taylor absently wondered if she was looking for another place or was just planning on staying there as long as she could get away with it.
[Data]
And apparently she thought that too loudly, somehow. On the other hand, she now knew that Lisa had basically been told she had to stay there unless she wanted to be dropped in a foster home for the time being, due to some of her psychological profile. She then spent five minutes explaining to Inference Engine about boundaries, only to be told that it was fully aware of the concept and had decided that it didn't care about them.
Taylor apologized to Lisa a few minutes later, after repeatedly bashing Inference Engine with the snark equivalent of a baseball bat. When it had complained Taylor had simply stated that 'not beating things up is a boundary, but you said you disregard those, so why are you complaining?'
Funnily enough, it seemed to decide that boundaries might be a good thing after all.
Patrol had been boring, as expected, with the most notable thing being Dean's power armor having a fault on the return trip. Taylor and Carlos had ended up helping get him back to the PRT building, bypassing part of the last section of the patrol route. This was followed by trying to figure out how to get him out of the power armor with the malfunctioning pieces not wanting to release.
They ended up having to call Chris to ask him for ideas, and he had them grab a device he'd made for the situation. When attached to the edge of those pieces of the armor it would forcibly drain them, allowing the manual release mechanisms to be used. Dean would be out of patrol rotation until the entire thing was gone over and repaired, but he'd probably still run a console shift or two.
With all of that taken care of they went their separate ways, though Carlos had taken the time to let Taylor know that they were running a 'light' patrol schedule all week because the Youth Guard felt they needed time to relax, which was why she was only scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday patrols.
Taylor arrived home to find her father had once again passed out on the couch, though this time without an ice pack on his foot. Instead Kurt had apparently brought beer over, if him being passed out in the chair was any indication. Why did they do this? Oh well, it wasn't her problem. Though she did go to the effort of cleaning up the beer bottles they had left sitting around, figuring it was best if they didn't trip over them while hungover.
A quick message to Lacey to let her know of the situation, and then she went and hid in her room with her research.
"Good afternoon everyone," a PRT officer said. There were a number of extra personnel in the room today, actually, so it wasn't just Brian and the unknown snark as extras. "Today we were able to arrange for a special treat. We covered some multiple-opponent tactics over the previous five lessons, and today you get to actually try them."
"With a twist, of course," a second officer said. "Obviously we have a number of extra volunteers here, but we also have a nullifier available. You'll be getting some experience under worst-case conditions. Disoriented by your powers not working, multiple opponents, and generally without your normal equipment as well."
Taylor blinked, and decided to poke that snark after all as the PRT officer dealt with a sudden outburst from Dennis and Vivian.
Hello there!
[Shock]
Sorry, didn't mean to surprise you. Do you know if your human goes by the name 'Hatchet Face' at times?
[Agreement. Query]
I'm one of the students I think your human is going to turn powers off for in a few minutes.
"Now then," the PRT officer said, having gotten Dennis and Vivian to shut up with the point that if they could get a nullifier for training then it would be possible to run into one in the field. "Once we have your powers nullified you're permitted to do anything you're still capable of. So let's get started, shall we?"
A minute later Taylor felt odd. She could tell that she couldn't project blunt objects, and her sense of things within range of her skin was gone. On the other hand her snark-sense was only feeling a little fuzzy, except for Hatchet Face's snark. It was still sitting there fully clear. Inference Engine's 'voice' was a little indistinct, but still understandable as it complained about being locked down.
Am I supposed to be able to talk to Inference Engine while he's trying to block things?
<Data>
That was kinda indistinct itself, but also understandable. Apparently this was part of the 'communication bits are harder to shut down' stuff she had learned previously. Disrupt, yes. Disable, not so much. And apparently a general 'please stop working' signal was being sent out for more mental powers?
If he's got a 'please stop working' signal going, why are you still working?
<Disclosure>
Taylor blinked at that. Both the Broadcast and the Administrator permission sets were in agreement that Hatchet Face's snark didn't have the authority to tell them to turn off. Huh. Wasn't stopping the rest of the disruption, of course, which is probably what the fuzzy bit was, snarks being disrupted but not disconnected.
Taylor decided to look around at the others. Dinah appeared to be grinning and more focused. Well, she did have a power that fed way too much information to her brain normally, so removing that distraction could only help. Lisa looked neutral. Probably less info, balanced out by nothing bombarding her brain. Brian seemed unaffected, Missy had fallen over but was recovering. Carlos had fallen over and didn't seem to be making any effort to get up. Dennis was frowning slightly, but otherwise looked unaffected. Chris and Vivian both seemed to be unsettled? Dean had stumbled at first, but seemed fine now.
"Well then," the PRT officer said, looking over the group. "Let's go with Weathergirl first, then Countdown. We'll figure the Wards out afterwards."
Taylor watched as Dinah did a decent job against four 'attackers', taking advantage of her smaller stature. In fact, she did better than she usually did. Vivian ended up being pretty much equal to her normal performance. Dennis, Chris, and Brian showed they were unaffected by the lack of their powers, followed by Dean making a decent showing but still looking a little unnerved. Lisa did ok, but was noticeably less aware of things. That was balanced out by being more alert in general. Missy ended up doing fairly well, but seemed less aware of her surroundings. Finally, Carlos was still having trouble standing and didn't even bother trying to fight.
Which left Taylor, who had fairly deliberately been left for last. The reasoning for this became very obvious very quickly, as she demonstrated that she was still stronger than a normal human and easily overpowered everyone thrown at her as a result. It wasn't her fault that they had encouraged her to not hold back, right?
"Owww," one of the volunteers said as they got back to their feet after being thrown against one of the walls. "Are you immune to your powers being turned off?"
"There's a marked difference between a normal Brute and a Tinker Fugue Brute," one of the other, non-participating, PRT officers answered. "Maul's powers don't grant her a Brute rating, that comes from having been the target of a fugue. As such nullifiers don't render her down to 'normal human'. We saved her for last for a reason. Of course, part of that reason was to see if we were right about nullifiers not affecting her strength."
"Mind if I run a quick test of my own?" Taylor asked.
The PRT officers looked at each other, before shrugging. "If you want to try and overcome things then feel free."
Taylor smirked as she prepared her test.
I'm sorry, but I'd like to see if I can overload you.
[Shock. Astonishment]
Yes, I'm still working? Why wouldn't I be?
[Assertion]
My snark says you don't have the authority.
[...Acceptance. Query]
Well, I'll be trying to open enough connections that you can't communicate with your own human.
[Curiosity]
Taylor took that as 'permission to try'. Or at least 'acknowledgement' anyway.
<Additional Connections Established>
She waited as her snark opened connections. More and more of them opening to Hatchet Face's snark. Only to start feeling those extra connections closing.
Why are they closing?
<Data>
Huh. They're timing out due to lack of traffic, which you think is to reduce the amount of manual connection management needed. So they aren't being closed deliberately? Do we just need to open them faster?
<Consideration>
[Query]
Apparently opening things slowly isn't working. So we're going to try faster.
<Maximum Connections Established>
Taylor knew it had worked the instant all the fuzziness vanished and her awareness of suitable objects within range of her skin returned. Carlos actually popped into the air at the same time, apparently not expecting to suddenly be able to fly again. In the next room it seemed like Hatchet Face had fallen over.
[Complaint]
I told you what we were trying to do.
[Agreement. Annoyance]
It didn't take long for all of those connections to time out and close, though, causing the fuzziness to return and Carlos to fall back to the ground.
I think we need to find a way to force connections to stay open.
<Agreement. Contemplation>
"Goddamnit," Lisa grumbled, rubbing her temples. She looked like she was about to say more, before suddenly clamping down on the impulse. Inference Engine seemed proud of her, though, figuring out that the 'nullifier' had to be a parahuman if Taylor had just shut them down for a moment.
"I think we're done," one of the PRT officers said, waving to another to get Hatchet Face to stop nullifying their powers. A minute later everything snapped back to normal again, complete with Carlos going airborne again, though at least this time he kept himself to only a couple of feet.
They had all ended up making a quick trip through the hospital area to be checked over. Carlos had pretty much recovered by the time they got there, and Taylor hadn't had any issues in the first place. The rest of them got some bruise cream. After that they had all gone to dinner together, Dinah joining them for once.
Taylor was splitting her attention three ways. On one hand she was listening to the whining from Vivian and the male Wards about the nullifier, with Dinah counter-arguing that it had been wonderful and stating that she wanted a nullifier for relaxing at home. Missy merely commented that she had obviously been using her powers subconsciously to map out her surroundings, and had only noticed when that went away. Taylor would admit that Carlos was being intelligent, taking some of the blame for his own issues. Apparently he had intentionally 'pre-adapted' in ways that made him reliant on his power to function?
The second thread of attention was continuing to work on her research. She was wondering if the person who designed this set of studies had ever met a parahuman before coming up with them, given the methods they had used. Then again, it was also the first she had run into where they had accidentally caused someone to second-trigger. Why had they thought putting parahumans back into conditions like those they had triggered in would be a good idea anyway? And why had the parahumans volunteered?
The third thread was a very discreet argument with Lisa by virtue of Inference Engine being able to relay between them. Apparently Lisa was unhappy with Hatchet Face having been in the next room. She saw it as evidence that the Nine were all working for the PRT, but didn't have the full story because the primer couldn't be opened on her current phone. Apparently her new phone hadn't shown up yet and the console in the Wards area wasn't SL9 or higher rated. The new computers weren't even as high as the console, for that matter.
Though really, Lisa's real problem was that Taylor wasn't talking. And Taylor wasn't talking because she hadn't checked Lisa's security clearances yet. Which Lisa understood, but was still pissed about.
The Wards had made it back to the common area, and Taylor had loaned Lisa her tablet for an hour in 'guest mode', meaning Lisa had to log into everything herself. Lisa had promptly locked herself in her room to start looking things up, grumbling that she wouldn't be able to keep copies of anything until she got her new phone.
During that hour Taylor continued her own research, after deciding that being able to sit there with the visor on was too useful to limit to 'Maul' in the future. She wouldn't bring something like it to school, or really use it in public at all, but she'd ordered a transparent version of the thing for use at home. Too bad it would show up too late to be used during break.
Apparently, at least if Inference Engine's insights were anything to go by, Lisa was feeling like an idiot, while also being impressed that the PRT had kept a lid on things as well as they had. She also wanted to ask Riley a lot of questions? Huh. Oh well. Maybe she'd get to do so some day.
[Query]
No, she can't have my password to try and override the file-copy restrictions.
But perhaps not until she learned to keep better control over her snark.
Saturday morning Taylor glared at the light rain through the bus window. Stupid rain that made the moped less useful and drove people to not walk places. As such the bus was crowded enough to make it so that she couldn't research, given the potentially sensitive nature of a lot of the base information she was in the middle of. She wasn't even sure why she was heading into the PRT this morning, beyond a last-minute request for her presence. She was scheduled to meet with Jessica this afternoon instead of going on the sole evening patrol, and otherwise hadn't had anything scheduled. She could have declined, of course, but she didn't feel she had a good enough reason to.
Besides, she was curious, and it was a decent excuse to get out of being dragged out of the house to help Kurt and Lacey. Yes, she had enhanced strength. No, that wasn't a valid excuse to not use professionals when moving appliances into and out of houses.
Once she arrived at the PRT building she walked in the main entrance. She was asked to show up as Taylor today for some reason. Not sure why, but she got her visitor's pass and was 'escorted' into the rest of the building. Today's pass had been prepared ahead of time and was double-sided. One side said she was here as an 'Intern: Parahuman Consulting'. The other said she was here as a 'Bullshit Artist: Level 10'. She even checked once they were in the hallway and found that they registered as granting different access to the building. Well, the 'Bullshit Artist' side registered as being a copy of her ID card, really.
"So Taylor," the PRT officer said, after getting the snickering at the ID card out of his system. "You've been called in to play consulting therapist of sorts with a visiting cape, though I don't know who that is. Doctor Yamada will be there to observe. This is apparently a more formal version of your 'consult with people about their powers' bit that you've been doing with others."
Well, she had a general idea of what was going on now, given that Jessica was with Hatchet Face right now. And Miss Militia was the only other parahuman she could feel in the building, though Lisa was within her range. "Alright, where is this happening?"
"The usual office you would be using to meet with Doctor Yamada, but with the panel hiding the door to the rest of the floor removed so we can pass through without using the corner stairwell, same as we'd do for any Ward who needs to use the elevators, really. Not that we've needed to do that often with Panacea in town."
They lapsed into silence as they approached a group of other employees, not guaranteed to be aware of Taylor's Ward status.
"Ahh," Jessica said, getting up as Taylor entered the room, the PRT officer having left already. "Good morning Miss Hebert. I'm glad you could make it."
"Good morning Doctor Yamada," Taylor replied, figuring they were in 'formal' mode after the 'Miss Hebert' comment.
"Now then," Jessica continued, gesturing to where Hatchet Face was getting up. He was large, but surprisingly scar-free and had nearly shoulder-length hair. Perhaps he used fake scars as Hatchet Face? "Allow me to introduce you to Fred Boucher. Fred, meet Taylor Hebert."
"Nice to meet you," Fred said, shaking Taylor's hand. "You can call me Fred. Jacob and Riley speak quite highly of you."
"You can call me Taylor. As for Jacob and Riley, I'll admit that I haven't spoken to them much about you either way."
"Not surprising. Our relationship is usually quite professional."
"Now then," Jessica said, gesturing to where chairs were set up. "Taylor, Jacob originally recommended that you speak with Fred, for his benefit and as additional experience. To get him here it had to be an official recommendation instead of a casual visit, which means I need to remain present as you aren't actually licensed. Fred has signed the appropriate paperwork for this, but the final decision on whether or not to proceed lies with you. Though if you do agree we'll need to record the session, and you should be prepared to take your own notes. The latter can be done from the recording if you wish."
Taylor thought about it, and decided she wouldn't feel right if she said no. After all, she had a unique skill that could help here, right? "I don't think I have problem with that. Do you mind if I set my tablet up?"
Fred and Jessica looked at each other, before shrugging. Taylor took that as permission and pulled her tablet out of her bag, leaving the bag itself on the shelf. Jessica indicated that Taylor should take the seat directly opposite where Fred had been sitting, before taking the third seat that was off to the side and had what appeared to be her notebook next to it.
"Before we begin," Fred said as he sat down, getting Taylor's attention as she was setting her tablet on the table next to her seat. "I'd like to thank you for the novel experience yesterday. Before then I'd never had my own power disabled. Until then I had been unsure of doing this, but if you can do that to me then if I lose control I'm sure you can stop me."
"I probably can, yeah. Even if I don't do the power shutdown trick in the same way you do," Taylor admitted, correcting the angle of the tablet. "My method is a less reliable brute-force method."
"Hah! Good one there."
Taylor hadn't intended that as a joke, but she supposed it fit. "I'm just lucky that you can't stop me from using all of my powers."
"If you two are ready," Jessica said, placing a recorder on the table situated between them. Taylor looked at Fred, who nodded. "I'll record a preface for record-keeping purposes, then we can begin. I'll leave it to Taylor for the time being, to see how she approaches things." Taylor nodded, and Jessica hit the record button. "Doctor Jessica Yamada, presiding over an experimental session between Taylor Hebert and Fred Boucher on April 16th, 2011..."
Taylor made her way into the Wards area a few hours later. She wasn't sure how they had kept going that long, actually. Well, she knew that she'd been getting information from his snark, which she thought was actually closer to how her uncle usually operated. And his snark had been quite cooperative once they got going. Granted, she suspected her uncle couldn't ask for clarifications from snarks, but on the other hand she didn't think she even knew half of the tricks she had used to get Fred talking about topics.
She had provided Jessica with a copy of the notes she had been taking on her tablet, and was told she'd get a message with information on how to access the official record of the session should she want to review it later. Jacob would also be getting copies of everything as Fred's primary therapist.
What were you talking with Jessica's snark about, anyway? I was doing my best to ignore you while I dealt with Fred.
[...Admission]
You were grilling it on how Jessica operates as a therapist? Really? Why?
[Data]
It interests you and you think it will help me in the...is that how I knew half of those tricks? Because you were talking with Jessica's snark about them in the back of my mind?
Taylor didn't know if she should be annoyed with that revelation or not. She knew that she absorbed information that transferred between snarks, though not always well. Evidence of that included that she knew way too much about biology in general and brains more specifically thanks to Broadcast Administrator's talking with Shaper and later others, including the link-up for Oni Lee's snark. Though...
Have you talked to any other snarks about psychology?
[...Data]
Broadcast liked to talk about it when Jacob was around and we were all asleep? Really? I suppose he would have had issues keeping it clamped down while sleeping...
[Agreement]
Dammit, now she wasn't even sure if her interest in this direction was natural, or a result of her snark talking to other snarks. Then again, every other therapist she'd met so far was a parahuman pushed by their snark in some way, maybe that was just normal for the profession, at least when it came to parahumans?
Taylor had decided to change as an excuse to wear her visor and then take advantage of the reassembled and freshly-stocked kitchen area to do some cooking. Despite her reservations about whether or not her interest in things was natural she was also back on the research train. The end result was that she had an hour before her afternoon appointment with Jessica and a fairly large lasagna prepared for herself and the other Wards, whenever they showed up.
She served herself a sizable portion and grabbed a soda, continuing to look through her research materials. A focus change for the afternoon had been to pay more attention to looking for any studies on parahuman psychologists, parahumans or otherwise. So far she hadn't found any. Apparently studying each other wasn't a thing? Or maybe she was seeing a potential pattern that wasn't actually there. Her sample size was, at best, three after all.
Taylor was considering seconds when Missy arrived, following her nose over to the kitchen once she came in. "What's that?"
"Lasagna," Taylor replied. "Decided to partially distract myself by testing out the new ability to cook in here, and found that they did a very good job with initial supplies, provided you don't care about making dessert."
"I bet they make us buy our own dessert supplies, if only to stick to providing us with 'healthy' options. Can I have some lasagna?"
"Go for it. I made plenty. I'll finish cleaning up after my appointment."
Having said that, Taylor finished the last bit of her serving and rinsed the plate she had used off in the sink. Missy was eagerly digging into the lasagna by the time she left for her appointment. She made good time up to the office, and Jessica was waiting for her. With the panel covering the door to the rest of the floor, even. It wasn't like she didn't know it was there, so why were they hiding it?
"Hello again Taylor," Jessica said as Taylor dropped her visor on the shelf and hung the weaponless jacket up. "I'm sorry we took so much of your time earlier, that was unexpected. I didn't realize you'd been studying psychology and some of the tricks we use quite that well."
"I haven't been," Taylor replied, getting a look from Jessica. "My snark was grilling your snark in the background. I tend to try and ignore it when my snark wants to be chatty, but I still tend to pick up information. So I think I got a lot of the details of tricks from you, indirectly."
"That...huh. Well, it explains things. How much will you retain?"
"No clue. And my understanding on why they work is something I know I'm lacking in, so there's that. For that matter, I'm a little fuzzy on when to use them too, now that I've thought back on things."
"So any true evaluation of your therapist skills needs to be done with a non-parahuman observer. I'll make sure your file indicates that."
"I'd go with no parahumans with therapist training within four hundred meters of me just to be safe."
Jessica thought about that. "I can see how that would be preferable. Anything else you want to bring up from earlier, or shall we move on to you?"
"Funny thing, I'm no longer certain that any interest I've had in psychology was natural..."
Taylor felt much better after her talk with Jessica, at least on some of her less obvious urges. She rightfully pointed out that Taylor had been somewhat pointed toward being a therapist by the ability to talk to snarks at all, so it was actually quite likely she'd have ended up looking into it either way. They'd also discussed Sophia a bit, and how Taylor felt about what had happened to the other girl.
They'd actually ended with a chat about how annoying it was from both sides when the patient was aware of a number of the tricks the therapist was using, even if Taylor didn't know how they were all supposed to work.
Returning to the Wards area, Taylor found that the lasagna was apparently all gone and the remaining dishes and cleanup had been done.
"Hey Taylor," Dennis called from where he was running the console. "We kinda decided on a policy of those who enjoy the food do the cleanup. Just so you know. And thanks for making the lasagna, it was delicious."
"Er, yeah," Taylor said, stunned. "You're welcome?" It was nice, but unexpected.
Shaking her head, she made her way to get changed. She might as well go home, Jessica had even recommended relaxing without doing any more research for the night. She took her time changing, and on a whim decided to take a few minutes to rearrange her drawers. Which led to finding the two lockets she had gotten Missy to modify, and which Taylor had forgotten about.
Giving that some thought, she dropped them into her civilian jacket pocket, so they wouldn't get lost in a utility belt pouch and forgotten about for a bit. She'd have to see about wrapping them, and then one of them would require looking into how to get it delivered.
Arriving home, Taylor found her father passed out on the couch. With an ice pack strapped to his left foot. She quietly went upstairs, then called Lacey to find out what had happened.
"Hi Taylor," Lacey answered. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," Taylor replied. "I don't suppose you know what happened to my father's foot?"
"Kurt was drunk and goofing off and knocked his bowling ball off of the shelf it was improperly placed on."
"That...sounds painful. Good thing it's the weekend, I guess."
They spent the next hour catching up on various things while Taylor cleaned up some of her research-mess, not looking over anything longer than was required to drop it into the correct pile. The two lockets were dropped on her desk to keep them visible at first, and then she decided to check to see if they had any small boxes around to wrap them in. Lacey had to go around that point, but it didn't take long for Taylor to find some suitable empty boxes. Digging through the small collection she found two that were obviously designed for lockets, and ten minutes later she had those ready.
She spent the rest of the evening playing stupid games on her phone.
Sunday was yet another rainy day, which was getting ridiculous in many ways. The rain had let up for a few hours overnight, but the next front had hit the area at around eight in the morning. At least it still wasn't the heavy rain of a few days ago, since Taylor had a patrol in the afternoon.
She made breakfast for her father and washed the dishes, allowing him to relax with his injured foot, before heading out. She'd looked things up while eating her own breakfast and knew how to send one of the lockets out now, and was going to take care of that. Once that was done she'd hit the gym.
A nice long session in the gym, followed by a second breakfast and a visit to the junkyard, had Taylor feeling much less stressed for the time being. She topped that off with lunch and getting set up on the new sound system in the Wards common area. With all of that done she finally gave into her urges and got back to research.
An hour later Carlos and Dean showed up, and Lisa came over from her apartment. Taylor absently wondered if she was looking for another place or was just planning on staying there as long as she could get away with it.
[Data]
And apparently she thought that too loudly, somehow. On the other hand, she now knew that Lisa had basically been told she had to stay there unless she wanted to be dropped in a foster home for the time being, due to some of her psychological profile. She then spent five minutes explaining to Inference Engine about boundaries, only to be told that it was fully aware of the concept and had decided that it didn't care about them.
Taylor apologized to Lisa a few minutes later, after repeatedly bashing Inference Engine with the snark equivalent of a baseball bat. When it had complained Taylor had simply stated that 'not beating things up is a boundary, but you said you disregard those, so why are you complaining?'
Funnily enough, it seemed to decide that boundaries might be a good thing after all.
Patrol had been boring, as expected, with the most notable thing being Dean's power armor having a fault on the return trip. Taylor and Carlos had ended up helping get him back to the PRT building, bypassing part of the last section of the patrol route. This was followed by trying to figure out how to get him out of the power armor with the malfunctioning pieces not wanting to release.
They ended up having to call Chris to ask him for ideas, and he had them grab a device he'd made for the situation. When attached to the edge of those pieces of the armor it would forcibly drain them, allowing the manual release mechanisms to be used. Dean would be out of patrol rotation until the entire thing was gone over and repaired, but he'd probably still run a console shift or two.
With all of that taken care of they went their separate ways, though Carlos had taken the time to let Taylor know that they were running a 'light' patrol schedule all week because the Youth Guard felt they needed time to relax, which was why she was only scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday patrols.
Taylor arrived home to find her father had once again passed out on the couch, though this time without an ice pack on his foot. Instead Kurt had apparently brought beer over, if him being passed out in the chair was any indication. Why did they do this? Oh well, it wasn't her problem. Though she did go to the effort of cleaning up the beer bottles they had left sitting around, figuring it was best if they didn't trip over them while hungover.
A quick message to Lacey to let her know of the situation, and then she went and hid in her room with her research.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Curiouser. Curiouser and Curiouser. A game is afoot, and one in which the pieces have been cloaked.
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Why do I get the impression that if this gets out there would be several other snarks wanting instructions in proper application of attitude correction techniques of that type?
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
This isn't the kind of thing you usually drop without at least some foreshadowing, but for the life of me I caan't recall anything earlier that would have to do with disassembling Simurgh quarantines. What did I miss or forget?
Huh.
I wonder what Jessica's cape name is, if she has one.
I wonder what Jessica's cape name is, if she has one.
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
This was the end result of the mass tinker fugue up in Canada. A device with consumable components that can de-Zizbomb people as well as detect the presence of such subtle Mastering attacks in the first place. There is an implication that if it works on Ziz targets, "lesser" Parahuman mastering effects will also fall to it.
Wanting or needing?
Tinker fugue created device that can detect and remove long-term master effects rendering them no longer needed over time?
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Unless she decided to pick one up, she doesn't have one, since she didn't even know she was a Parahuman until Taylor noticed her snark at their first meeting.
- Location
- Germany
I think in the one artifical tinger fugue in Canada they put something together that recognized and 'healed' victims of the Simurgh...
Or masters in general, I don't quite remember.
Edit: Ninjaed by the author
I could have sworn that I had her first meeting have her rant about Taylor's family all picking up on it, actually. In fact, have a quote:
- Location
- Canada
Why would it matter being close to the weekend or not? The Truce should only last during the weekend after all, having it last before/after seems a bit extreme. Unless it's due to the risk that due to Panacea not being available during the weekend that if they're injured and aren't healed in the next day or so then they'd have to wait until the following week. But I don't see gangs caring as much about that risk. Though maybe with the recent loss of their healer then E88 might care more?
Wonder how she'd feel if she knew that the nullifier was in fact a member of Slaughterhouse nine.
I thought that it was mentioned about people being able to check other people's clearance levels with their phones...
I used to drive a moped when I was a teen, and I can state outright that you should still be able to drive in the rain. Even going 40-55km/h (25-34mph) main streets with stoplights (and decent lighting) was no issue. Admittedly, small streets that use stop signs and limited lighting were harder, but usually the speed limit was less on those anyways so it balanced out.
Though I will admit to wiping out a few times in the rain, if you wear jeans, a jacket, gloves and a helmet then it doesn't hurt much. Though one time I did so when I was going a bit too fast in a turn where there was construction or something since the road was all gravel didn't turn out too well... My jeans were torn open and got a pretty nasty road rash on my leg and had to limp home while pulling/pushing the bike with me.
Well she could have said she was busy working on the research, given she has limited time to do so it would be a perfectly valid reason for random unscheduled unspecified request especially when she already had to go in for an evening patrol.
I double checked her conversation with Missy. She had bought one for herself and one for Missy before Missy said she had her own and it hasn't been mentioned since, so who is the locket for especially since she seems to be getting a box for both of them (wouldn't need one if she was keeping it after all...).
Amy doesn't need it since she's a public cape, admittedly it would help Lisa so that's my guess except that it needs to be delivered. So maybe Riley?
- Location
- Washington, DC
The big Canadian Tinker Fugue do-dad that allows the scanning and disarms of Simurgh's sleeper.
- Location
- USA
Well the Anti-Master device Taylor helped Dragon and her merry band of tinkers create will allow them to clear the quarantined. Then the cities need to be reopened.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
Ah yeah, I did indeed forget the nominal main result of that fugue event, what with the whole "Surprise, you just adopted an AI daughteru!" thing. Thanks everyone!
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Five gets you ten that the constant rain is Leviathan's doing.
- Location
- Canada
Desperate times, I suppose. But they've been around that long?
draconix
Very Intermittent Author
- Location
- Belize
Taylor mentioned asking Dinah about that and getting a negative.
- Location
- usa
She's going to show up to her thesis defense and they guy she sent a 50 page correction to is going to be on the committee and the others are going to recognize her from other corrections and critiques she sent in.
It's like the story of the guy who showed up to a police forensic class and the teacher asked if he was related to the author who wrote the text for the class only for the guy to say that no, he wasn't related to the author, he was the author. When asked why he was taking the class, he replied that the police department required him to take it because he didn't have a bloody degree in forensic science.
It's like the story of the guy who showed up to a police forensic class and the teacher asked if he was related to the author who wrote the text for the class only for the guy to say that no, he wasn't related to the author, he was the author. When asked why he was taking the class, he replied that the police department required him to take it because he didn't have a bloody degree in forensic science.
William Stepp
Journeyman Builder
Ya know; with all of the research she's doing on her "Thesis", and the corrections she has made or sent to the authors of some of the case studies she's reviewing. She is probably going to be awarded a Doctorate of Parahuman psychology at the Certificate level until she picks up credits needed for her degree. Based on what I have been seeing thus far. I wonder if the Thinktank and Contessa are behind this? With the Thinktank, as a way to justify the garden of Walls she has, and with Contessa, it's all part of the plan.
- Location
- Canada
*snickers* More like voluntold.
Maybe they could get the Triumvirate to make a hole in one of the walls? I'm sure Eidolon has a power that'll let him do that, never mind Legend's lasers or Alexandria being able to punch through pretty much anything.
So... she basically got full marks? Neat.
Does this actually happen IRL?
*chuckles* That IS a rather amusing mental image.
How'd she get hit so many times? Shouldn't Inference Engine tell her where she's most likely to get hit? Or am I getting confused with how it works?
Limbo champion!
*groans* That is so unfair.
*snickers* The gauntlet has been thrown. Let the research war begin!
That's a good question, actually. Why hasn't anyone shut his account down yet?
That bomb tinker power is really, REALLY bullshit.
:lol I'm sorry, but the idea of the Merchants doing anything even remotely close to community service is just hilarious!
They can grow to, like, 30 feet tall, and the best people can come up with is opening jars? What about helping with construction work? I can see plenty of cases where a pair of giantesses would be handy.
*facepalm* Idiots... since when are Wards ever alone, and why would you pick a fight with one of them in the first place? Do you WANT Kaiser to give you razor blade enemas?
*nods* Smart man. Never thought I'd say that about an Empire member.
*cackles* Oh, this will be interesting.
Administrator is such a BS snark.
She really hates not knowing, eh? I sympathize, I really do.
Whoever made that pass is a genius.
She might end up becoming the best parahuman psychologist ever, come to think about it.
*wince* Ouch...
:lol
Heleor
^_^
To be fair, the wording was only that it was unlikely to use it as a cover for attack. Causing rain to increase annoyance is still up in the air!