@mp3.1415player, is this the only other POV that you've written for this omake? Or will SkitterTaylor also get her own POV written?
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
That will happen, yes. Possibly in the next chapter, which is half written.
eonmoon
Verified Kitsune.
- Location
- flint michigan usa
in reguards to opening a path into the domes. it wouldn't be too hard to have saurial or her siblings come by with a sword and go all lightsaber on the dome wall, cutting a new doorway
or cracking open a portal inside to evacuate people thru decontamination procedures
or cracking open a portal inside to evacuate people thru decontamination procedures
So I was thinking, what happened to Hero? With the S9 being a therapy group, how did Hero get killed by Siberian? Because the Triumvirate is still a group of three which means Hero is still dead. Or is this one of those questions that got answered that I missed somewhere in the thread?
- Location
- Phoenix, AZ, USA
rofl:
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Just because the S9 is an undercover therapy group doesn't mean that they're necessarily GOOD, or innocent. Most likely, Manton did kill Hero here as well. He's just being spared because he has use, and because here it's made pretty clear that powers fuck with your head and render you at least a little insane. That's the whole point of the S9, a place to put capes whose powers will force them to kill or horribly hurt and giving them direction and purpose that is constructive instead of destructive. Aka: What would happen if Cauldron actually was for the greater good.
THE GREATER GOOD!
STOPPIT!
- Location
- Cali
Yea...no. Lets not bring Cauldron into this. Cauldron morality debates never go anywhere good.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Well, Cauldron has a direct influence on the matter, because Manton, Hero, and the Triumverate all directly are part of or associated with Cauldron. Given the very different nature of Bet in this AU, it is safe to assume that critical assumptions of how Cauldron works here are different, to include how they approach their overall goal of forming a parahuman army for the Sciocalypse. It's hard to tell exactly where the point of divergence was for this AU, other than Jack going 'the fuck am I doing, exactly?', but that alone can't quite explain all of the differences, and given that many of the issues of canon can be directly traced back to how Cauldron operated, it seems fairly clear that one or more of the premises of their operations changed. We know that here the C53 capes seem to be voluntarily wiped instead of forcibly wiped, for instance. We also know that the PRT and protectorate are aware that some foreign entity is what gives powers, and that the powers are intelligences of their own that have wants and needs and will influence capes.
I'm not too interested in a Cauldron morality debate (mostly because they were in the wrong in canon and fucking things up), but we should bring Cauldron into this to at least figure out what's changed, because something has changed.
- Location
- Barcelona, Catalunya, EU (for now)
Well, it's obvious you have to reference and link to both stories in the first post of such a hypotetical thread, giving more exposure to both stories. I see that as win.
And when some... let's go with "person"... starts complaining and whining about something not being [Worm] canon, you can ask if they read both stories and taken into account the canonical changes that apply to each. If they haven't read none of the two, you can politely laugh at their ignorance and be smug about it. If they have read one but not the other, you can point them to the relevant portions of the story they haven't read, and be smug about it. If they have read both... Hmm... I suspect that anyone that has read both will not give a fuck about [Worm] canon, so I doubt they will complain. On the whole, that's a win-win situation.
The only practical problem is who gets to be the OP. I think, though, that SV is prepared for collaborative works, so the OP can appoint other forumites as co-authors or something to that effect, so it's not like the other co-author will be left behind.
For example, back in the TV thread, you could grant EdBecerra some privileges [ROB forbid it! This is an example, NOT a suggestion!] inside the thread to work as assistant author or something like that.
- Location
- Not where I want to be
Yeah, once they arrive to bring back Maul, if they hear of this little invention, they'll probably offer to assist... or they would, if Maul getting displaced and rescued by lizards were canon. As it is, this most useful resource isn't available.
Cauldron morality isn't anywhere that easy, sorry. Even stating that they were wrong is disingenuous. Dr. Mother and Contessa learned early on that Scion would destroy the world, and they looked for help preventing that. Doing nothing would certainly be amoral.
They didn't have any sort of healer, but a serum that might heal; is it amoral to offer that to people in need of healing after informing them of possible consequences? To people that will die without it, that you can't help otherwise? The Triumvirate and many other heroes certainly do not think so. It's important to remember that most Cauldron members became members after their life was saved this way. Do unto others as you want to be done unto you and all that.
Likewise there's nothing in canon to suggest that any of the C53 were created against their will. Was the memory wipe voluntary or to prevent psychosis in every case? We don't know. Was keeping the C53 locked up amoral? Looking at the Canary case and (probably) other court cases during canon, we'd need to look at their powers, mental stability, and appearance in detail; I'm not willing to make a blanket judgement. And don't forget that they did put a system to support C53 in place as well. It's not ideal, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong or mean that there is another better and practical option available.
Overall Cauldron did some things that should be questioned (but not necessary condemned) and a few things that probably should be condemned, but they were confronted with a problem that threatened all life on the planet and every other place we could reach. Not doing everything possible to win would be even worse than any of the stuff we know they did.
And looking at the sequel, you can see how important Cauldron was; how their planning and preparation is probably the only reason the city hasn't collapsed and certainly the reason that infrastructure is in place at all.
If you want to condemn Cauldron, you have to do so constructively; i.e. how, with the limited knowledge, power, and influence they had, they should have acted. Because ignoring the problem that forced them to act is not an option, and creating more Triumvirate level heroes appeared the best method to find some means to defeat Scion.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
I'm not even talking morality. Cauldron plain-out fucked up. They failed, and we're only saved by having the sheer dumb luck that the right kind of monster with the right experience was in the right place to do their job for them. They were the ones who accidentally unleashed the Endbringers on Bet because one of their top members couldn't keep his damn conflict-boner in his pants. Their 'army' was an undisciplined mob of conflicting interests that kept fighting itself in the face of Armageddon until the one who could do the job mind-controlled them. The C53s we're very much not willing, as seen by the fact that the majority of them proceeded to kill every member of Cauldron they could get their assorted manipulating appendages upon. In every measurable metric that mattered to the survival of humanity, they either lucked out, were at best neutral, or actively harmful and counter-productive. They relied on a monkey's paw built for conflict and forgot to take even the most basic of precautions to try and ensure that they had effective solutions.
Morality had nothing to do with the reasons most hate them. It's entirely because they had all the advantages in the world and still made the stupidest mistakes possible while doing their best to make bond villains look like tasteful and restrained paragons of competence.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
Oh? Fair enough then. To be honest, I barely even got started on Worm itself before the general tone got bleak enough that I just closed the tab. I might have held on longer without knowing that it never gets lighter before hand, but would probably also have been turned off the setting entirely rather than being able to enjoy stuff with at least some upbeat segments that aren't just setting up to pull the rug out from under Taylor and the reader.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
In Canon, Cauldron is very much a predatory organization. They might have started out with noble goals. But as the saying goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Let's assume every single Case 53 was a volunteer. Cauldron would approach people who were on their death bed or otherwise crippled for life. They would then offer a miracle cure, all the person has to do is sign away the rest of their life. And if the experiment didn't work as intended Cauldron would erase the memories of the person, then dump those that could operate on their own on Earth Bet. At which point they would conscript said 'case 53' into their puppet organization (the PRT) and tell them "nobody knows why this happens to some people".
They also let monsters like the S9 roam unchecked on the grounds of said monsters are causing more triggers then the number of parahumans they killed. When The Butcher's nature first became known, they could have stopped him/her in his/her tracks. How? Non-lethal takedown and imprisonment. Or even banishing to an uninhabited Earth. But they didn't. Why would they let The Butcher remain on the loose? Well, it's quite possible they did so for the same reason they let the S9 roam around unchecked. They wanted the triggers The Butcher inevitably causes, and were hoping the gestalt mad(wo)man would eventually grow powerful enough to face an Entity on equal footing. They allowed Brockton Bay to become a hellhole all for the sake of their experiment in if parahuman feudalism can be a viable society. But all they had to do to learn the answer to that question was look at Africa. The experiment was entirely unneeded to learn what the experiment was trying to learn. And that's without all the accidental atrocities they committed, such as unleashing the Endbringers.
There's a saying that goes "the lesser evil is still evil". But to be honest, the way Cauldron was going about trying to save the world... they weren't a lesser evil IMO. They were as bad as what they were preparing for. Maybe even worse. The Entities destroy worlds because that's all they know to do. Cauldron was doing so "for the greater good." And despite what they might claim, Cauldron wasn't trying to save as many lives as possible. They were just trying to kill an Entity.
For the greater good... I can't think of any justification that's more insidious. You can justify a lot with that statement. Adopting it is the first step on a very steep and very slippery road. It's saying that everything you do, no matter how horrific or evil, is justified in the end because it's for the greater good. But you'll notice the phrase never once mentions who's greater good it's for.
The Mauling Snarks version of Cauldron appears to have started with a different question. Instead of "how do you kill a powerful entity" the question appears to be "how do you save a world". Which is a step in the right direction.
They also let monsters like the S9 roam unchecked on the grounds of said monsters are causing more triggers then the number of parahumans they killed. When The Butcher's nature first became known, they could have stopped him/her in his/her tracks. How? Non-lethal takedown and imprisonment. Or even banishing to an uninhabited Earth. But they didn't. Why would they let The Butcher remain on the loose? Well, it's quite possible they did so for the same reason they let the S9 roam around unchecked. They wanted the triggers The Butcher inevitably causes, and were hoping the gestalt mad(wo)man would eventually grow powerful enough to face an Entity on equal footing. They allowed Brockton Bay to become a hellhole all for the sake of their experiment in if parahuman feudalism can be a viable society. But all they had to do to learn the answer to that question was look at Africa. The experiment was entirely unneeded to learn what the experiment was trying to learn. And that's without all the accidental atrocities they committed, such as unleashing the Endbringers.
There's a saying that goes "the lesser evil is still evil". But to be honest, the way Cauldron was going about trying to save the world... they weren't a lesser evil IMO. They were as bad as what they were preparing for. Maybe even worse. The Entities destroy worlds because that's all they know to do. Cauldron was doing so "for the greater good." And despite what they might claim, Cauldron wasn't trying to save as many lives as possible. They were just trying to kill an Entity.
For the greater good... I can't think of any justification that's more insidious. You can justify a lot with that statement. Adopting it is the first step on a very steep and very slippery road. It's saying that everything you do, no matter how horrific or evil, is justified in the end because it's for the greater good. But you'll notice the phrase never once mentions who's greater good it's for.
The Mauling Snarks version of Cauldron appears to have started with a different question. Instead of "how do you kill a powerful entity" the question appears to be "how do you save a world". Which is a step in the right direction.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Another potential answer to the change is that they asked: "How do you build an EFFECTIVE army". There's a difference between an unstable rabbling horde and a drilled and prepared army, one that is psychologically as stable as can be under the circumstances.
I've never seen anyone use that phrase that wasn't doing bad things to someone and trying to justify it. These days, I just assume that anyone using it is a bad guy.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
There are valid reasons and times for that justification. Cauldron's fight is one of them. But it requires being willing and able to submit oneself to justice afterward to be judged for actions undertaken. It also requires that those actions be EFFECTIVE. Which is my problem with the majority of the 'greater good' types, they're not effective, and completely fuck it up.
- Location
- Not where I want to be
Some interesting points. The C53 debate can IMHO be summarized as: Is it better to let someone die, or to use an experimental treatment and anonymously support them if there are side effects. Perhaps whitewashing, perhaps not. We know simply too little of Cauldron's activities and resources to know for certain.
S9 and Butcher are interesting cases. Butcher might not even have registered with them as a threat before he became too powerful to be contained or they just expected the PRT to be able to do the job. A not unreasonable assumption I might add. As for the S9; fanon makes Contessa a lot more powerful than canon. Alexandria loosing an eye, Hero dying, Alexandria dying... all those are examples of Cauldron not being able to predict and influence events, and at least the last didn't involve any of Contessa's blind spots. So before condemning them we'd have to establish that they were actually able to stop them easily or actively prevented others from doing so.
I also note that none of Cauldron's other efforts, like keeping the economy stable or preparing a world for people to rebuild on, complete with support agreements from yet more worlds, seems to register with people as things Cauldron did.
Then there's Parahuman feudalism... Africa has shown a collapse of society as parahumans struggled. The question was not if it could work - they saw it as inevitable, perhaps correctly so - it was whether it could be achieved without civilization collapsing and while maintaining an advanced infrastructure. We don't know how much of Brockton Bay's experience helped prepare for the post-Scion rebuild of society. The sheer effectiveness and speed does suggest well refined plans. As such I'm hesitant to judge the experiment (which I see pretty much as Contessa not assisting that city and little else) as something overly bad.
S9 and Butcher are interesting cases. Butcher might not even have registered with them as a threat before he became too powerful to be contained or they just expected the PRT to be able to do the job. A not unreasonable assumption I might add. As for the S9; fanon makes Contessa a lot more powerful than canon. Alexandria loosing an eye, Hero dying, Alexandria dying... all those are examples of Cauldron not being able to predict and influence events, and at least the last didn't involve any of Contessa's blind spots. So before condemning them we'd have to establish that they were actually able to stop them easily or actively prevented others from doing so.
I also note that none of Cauldron's other efforts, like keeping the economy stable or preparing a world for people to rebuild on, complete with support agreements from yet more worlds, seems to register with people as things Cauldron did.
Then there's Parahuman feudalism... Africa has shown a collapse of society as parahumans struggled. The question was not if it could work - they saw it as inevitable, perhaps correctly so - it was whether it could be achieved without civilization collapsing and while maintaining an advanced infrastructure. We don't know how much of Brockton Bay's experience helped prepare for the post-Scion rebuild of society. The sheer effectiveness and speed does suggest well refined plans. As such I'm hesitant to judge the experiment (which I see pretty much as Contessa not assisting that city and little else) as something overly bad.
Maybe something like "Lobster-whisperer". It turns out red means "help, the water is getting uncomfortably hot".
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Didn't Jesseca comment to Taylor that Taylor is the 3rd person in her family to instantly know she was a parahuman? But Taylor was able to give information on what the power actually is. Which it turned out to be, the power was kind of over specialized in reading the previous host species via changes in skin coloration. But since humans don't work the same way, it was making the psychologist obsessed with blushes for a while?
- Location
- Not where I want to be
Yes, that's what happened. I'm still surprised that nobody, especially Taylor, paid any further attention to the previous species bit. I hope that will be explained sometime in the future.
- Location
- Europe
Or it was all in order to get that route to Victory that Contessa was going for.
She only has a few blindspots, Scion, Eden, Eidolon, Endbringers.
But folks like Dinah, did not, so the path could be to make those folks make their own moves.
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- Location
- Cali
This is why I say "Don't bring cauldron into this". Because you're wrong. Now we have to fight.
So can we just pretend we did ten pages of bitching back and forth about our views on Cauldron and at least one of us got a temp ban for calling the other a mean poo poo head or something, and agree to disagree and realize that making wide sweeping statements about Cauldron is only going to end in tears? If we absolutely MUST discuss Cauldron, lets discuss what they're doing differently. Which so far, seems to be "Jack Shit".
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Actually, they are doing something different. Remember, Taylor's SL9 clearance and clearance to see many of the things that unfucked the system were directly precipitated by Contessa. And they're also behind... The Box! *Drama Sting* If nothing else, those two items are very different from canon and suggest a different approach. But... we don't have enough information yet to have a full accounting.
- Location
- Launceston, Tasmania
Any plan that requires sacrificing people better include yourself (the planner) as being among those sacrificed. Those sacrificed should also be fully informed of the reason why, the consequences of being/not being sacrificed and so on if there is time to do so.
Who knows, one of those being sacrificed might just have a plan that works better.
Who knows, one of those being sacrificed might just have a plan that works better.
Chapter 64
Monday morning Taylor was woken up by her phone ringing. Once she'd connected to see the caller ID and saw Riley was the one calling she answered.
"Hello?" Taylor finally said, answering just before the call would have gone to voicemail.
"How in the world did you get a gift onto my nightstand?" Riley asked.
Taylor thought about that. "I don't even know where you live."
"Then how is a small gift box sitting on my nightstand?"
"I'm gonna blame the box-moving snark." And apparently get up, because despite being six in the morning she probably wouldn't be getting any more sleep now. Besides, she apparently had a small pile of messages. "Stupid box-moving snark loves to mess with me, I think."
"But you were sending me something?"
"Yeah. Small thank you for the enhancements."
Taylor heard movement from the other end of the call even as she climbed out of bed. Screw it being rude in some way while on the phone, her bladder had decided it wanted to be emptied.
"Why did you get me a stupid locket?" Riley asked a couple minutes later. "I mean, yeah, I'm a girl, but I'm not usually that kind of girl?"
"Look behind the picture holders," Taylor said, yawning a moment later. Huh, she got the feeling the yawn didn't get sent to Riley. Neat.
"Holy crap, It's bigger on the inside. Where in the world did you get this? Why would you give it up instead of keeping it? This is incredible!"
"I figured you could use a place to hide little things that nobody would think much of. For my purposes I use a similarly upgraded utility belt, in and out of costume."
"You mean this is reproducible?"
"Yep."
"Does it work on people?"
"Don't think so. She's Manton limited." Taylor cleaned herself up and flushed before wandering back to her room and starting to flip through the messages on her phones. She did her best to ignore Riley's grumbling about all the fun stuff not working due to stupid limits.
"Wait, she?" Riley finally said, sounding slightly shocked. "Does that mean Vista did this?"
"Yeah. Unless you know of any other space warpers?"
"I've got to figure out how to meet her properly. Thanks for the gift, I'm going to go see what I can cram into it now. Bye!"
Taylor blinked as the call disconnected. Oh well. Lets see about those messages. Automated warning to all Wards, apparently she'd have to be careful if she wandered into the PRT on Wednesday as 'visitors' would be in the secure area. Notice from Carlos about classes on Wednesday and Friday of the following week for everyone but her and Missy, probably the gun safety stuff. Response from Dennis complaining that Carlos should be asleep at five thirty in the morning, not doing Wards leader stuff. Huh.
She drafted a quick response to Dennis explaining that his phone should have quiet-time options, and how to use them. And how to exclude certain contacts and 'high priority' messages from them, for that matter.
Moving on, a message from Uncle Jacob wanting to know what the hell she did to get Fred to open up that much in a first session. He was thankful for the note about his snark being willing to have him seriously prank and/or freak out capes instead of killing them outright, at least sometimes. The rest wasn't really new info, but the fact she got it out of Fred was impressive. She threw a reply that she cheated twice over, using information from his snark and information from Jessica's snark. She had a feeling she'd have to submit documentation on that at some point.
On her personal phone she had several junk messages that were just clever enough to bypass Arcadia's filters in her school account, and several alerts from PHO on her personal account. Most of which were people direct-messaging her questions, and would be ignored. But she'd have to go through and flag them properly, so she grabbed her tablet and headed downstairs. It would give her something to do over breakfast, at least.
An hour later she'd eaten, cleared her PHO messages, browsed for a bit, and finally given up and gone back upstairs to get back to work on her 'thesis'. Specifically, she started actually writing it, fleshing out the rough outline she'd already constructed. She'd double-check research as she went along at this point.
A few hours later Taylor made her way down to the kitchen to make lunch, setting her tablet on the counter so she could continue working. She went with a simple cold cut sub and a soda, and moved the tablet to the table when she was ready to eat. Considering things, she swapped a couple of sections in the outline so that the next section would come more naturally. Luckily this was the first pass, merely getting the general idea for each section into place. She'd flesh everything out later.
It took her three quarters of an hour to realize that she'd finished her lunch, at which point she took a few minutes to clean things up before heading back upstairs.
"Taylor?" Danny called, sticking his head into the room. Taylor was sitting with the tablet and both phones propped up on the desk and various printouts spread out in piles around her.
"Yeah?" Taylor replied, not really looking up.
"Have you been working on that all day?"
"Er, yes?" She then mumbled something about a study while she was flipping through a pile of printouts.
Danny sighed. "Ok, enough of that for now, come down for dinner." He waited a moment, then grabbed Taylor and pulled her out of the chair.
"Hey!"
"You're coming down and eating dinner, and the work is staying up here. No arguing."
Taylor grumbled as she was dragged downstairs. Yes, she could have gotten away from her father at any point, but then he'd probably just make her take a longer break. It turned out that they were having Chinese takeout. And apparently she was hungry, given how much she ate.
"So Taylor," Danny said as Taylor contemplated thirds. There was plenty, apparently her father had splurged a bit? "How far along in your paper are you?"
"Ummm," Taylor mumbled as she grabbed another piece of boneless pork. She chewed as she thought about things, then swallowed. "I finished the very rough draft and was starting to flesh things out. I think I'm twenty or so pages into that? Maybe fifteen percent done on the first pass."
Danny stared at Taylor. "From what I was told about this, they're expecting maybe fifty pages. Not over a hundred."
"I don't think I can properly argue the points I'm making in fifty pages."
"Perhaps you're arguing too many points?"
"They're all connected to the central premise. If I'm going to do this I'm doing it right."
Danny sighed. "Just don't burn yourself out, ok?"
"I'll try not to."
Taylor ended up finishing off the beef teriyaki and the chicken, but there was plenty of rice and quite a bit of pork left for some other time. Then again, the rice worked out quite nicely when frozen, so over-ordering wasn't generally an issue. Once that was done she helped clean up, then went back upstairs with a glass of water to get back to work.
Rebecca glared at the filled water bulb on the rainbow rose bush on her desk. She had gone to check on something in person, and the bulb was filled when she returned. "I see I need to talk to Contessa about visiting when I'm here again."
Shaking her head, she sat down and checked for new messages. Oh, good, Montreal had finalized their 'purchase' of one of the anti-master systems, which would hopefully prove effective against Heartbreaker's thralls. It was too bad that their two test subjects showed that the children tended to have too much damage to properly recover, but at least they came out of it with a partial resistance to masters in general as a side effect.
"Good evening Rebecca," Contessa said, stepping out of the hole in spacetime that had appeared a moment before. Rebecca wasn't expecting her, and it looked like she was carrying a watering can...
"I thought you'd already been by," Rebecca said, gesturing at the rose bush. "Given that the water bulb in my rose bush is already filled?"
Contessa blinked, then moved to the desk. She tapped the water bulb a couple of times, and it was indeed filled. "But...how? That path still thinks I need to fill this one. But now it's confused, because I obviously don't."
Rebecca paled. If the path still thought it needed watering...
Five minutes later the entire building was locked down for an emergency top-level Master/Stranger scan. It wouldn't turn anything up, and David had been caught on camera during the time he would have needed to get away to water the bush. The mystery would go unsolved, and would get worse over time as every so often one of the bushes would be watered before Contessa could get to them.
Tuesday Taylor made her way into the PRT building and had lunch there before her patrol. She had, reluctantly, left her 'thesis' work at home. She was using the printouts and handwritten notes on them too much to work on it anywhere else right now.
It wasn't long after she had finished eating that Chris and Dean arrived, though Brian was apparently running a little late. Then again, he was running the console and didn't have power armor to get into.
"So far so good," Dean said a little later as he moved around a bit. "Seems like everything's working today."
"Armsmaster said it was only a failure of one of the gaskets that led to water shorting out the control leads," Chris said. "So technically we won't know for sure until you get it wet. Isn't it nice that it's raining?"
Dean stopped moving around, and turned to Chris. "You had to say something, didn't you? Now I'm going to be slightly stressed until we get back, not sure if things are going to lock up again."
"It's a short patrol primarily to show a few Wards around and test the repair. So yes, I did."
"Just be glad they have a van on standby in case something goes wrong," Taylor added. "Though, are we bringing the tool we used to get you out before?"
"I have it right here," Chris said, turning his hoverboard to show the tool clamped to the side. "The van will have one too, just in case."
"At least we're prepared," Dean muttered.
"Where's Brian?" Chris asked. "Since he's supposed to be running the console and all?"
"No clue," Taylor replied, causing the other two to look at her. "What? I have a maximum range. He's not inside of it."
"And you haven't checked in with him anyway?" Chris asked.
"Why would I be checking with him? You're today's patrol leader, since the primary purpose is to ensure that the repairs on Dean's tinkertech armor are ok. I figured if he checked with any of us it would be you. Barring that, I'd expect Carlos to let you know if he heard anything."
"She's got a point," Dean added. "We really should be asking you where he is."
Chris sighed, then headed over to the console, probably to check if the PRT officer had any news. A few minutes later he came back, frowning. "Looks like Brian's in the hospital. PRT got wind of it in the past half hour or so. Apparently he's got food poisoning, and his sister and one of their neighbors were brought in with him. PRT had someone ready to handle console stuff anyway, so we can get going anytime."
"I don't know who to be sorry for," Taylor said, causing the other two to look at her. "I don't want to be sorry for the cook who shouldn't have let it happen, so if it was one of them?"
Dean snorted even as Chris sighed. The three did their console checks, then headed out.
Taylor groaned as she entered the house, having been dropped off by Dean. Whose armor had performed wonderfully. Chris's, on the other hand, had shorted out. He'd done a field repair, and then it'd shorted out again. When they made it back to the PRT building he'd discovered that he had gotten the ratios wrong on the sealant he'd used. Specifically, his dyscalculia had apparently bit him when he scaled up the amounts of the multi-part mixture, so the stuff hadn't set properly and had started dissolving in the rain.
Luckily they hadn't had to lug him and his armor back to the PRT themselves. The tool brought in case of failure with Dean's armor let them deal with the couple of bits that didn't fall apart outright. Then they'd only had to lug it into the van that came to pick them up. And then back out of it onto a cart at the PRT building, and finally off of the cart and into his tinker workshop when the cart Chris had grabbed proved to be a poor choice that wouldn't fit through the door.
After that they'd changed back into civilian attire to visit Brian in the hospital. Once there they found out that his neighbor had invited him and Aisha over for dinner, but hadn't realized that a couple of ingredients were past their use-by dates. The end result was all three of them ending up sick. They might have said hello to Aisha, but she was asleep.
Amy probably would have fixed them right up, but she wasn't scheduled to visit, and it wasn't an emergency for any of them. Barring someone coming in with something worse they were on their own. They'd still likely be out of the hospital the following day, as at this point they were mainly there for observation.
Taylor sighed as she prepared dinner for herself. Her father had called shortly after they'd left the hospital to let her know that they'd found a leak in a document storage room. He'd be running late while they ensured that the documents were moved to another room. Of course, he also made her promise to eat dinner before going back to her paper.
Once she had eaten and cleaned up, thus feeling she had properly dealt with the promise she'd made, she retreated to her room and got back to work. The paper was due in two days, after all.
Wednesday Taylor woke up, had breakfast with her father, and then got back to work on her paper. As far as she was concerned it needed to be basically done today so that she could submit it before her patrol tomorrow. Her 'breaks' during the day were mainly chore-related, in that she moved laundry through the machines and took time to do some folding.
Lunch was mainly leftover pork and rice with some bread. It was eaten downstairs with her work left upstairs, even if there was no chance of her father knowing she hadn't put stuff down long enough to eat. Once that was done she went right back into things.
By the time her father arrived home she had reached a point where she felt she had actually run out of things to add, fix, or expand upon. They had dinner, with minimal small talk, and then she sat down, in the living room, to read over what she had from start to finish.
Her father noticed when she put the tablet down. "So, you done?"
"I think so," Taylor replied. "A full hundred and sixty eight pages."
"Have you submitted it yet?"
"No? I haven't had anyone else look over it."
"Would anyone else in the area understand it?"
Taylor thought about that. "Maybe Doctor Yamada? Otherwise not really."
"Then submit it so that you're done with it, and then I recommend you get some sleep. Don't think I haven't noticed that you've been staying up late and getting up early."
"After the first time waking up in a pile of case studies I cut back. I just don't need as much sleep since Amy and Riley worked on me." Regardless of that, she picked up the tablet and dug up the 'how to submit' instructions. It didn't take long, and ten minutes later she had a confirmation message that the file had been accepted.
"Well, at least find something that isn't 'work' to do," Danny said, getting up. "I'd like you to avoid anything involving school or information in the PRT systems for the rest of the week, honestly. Not sure I can expect you to hold to that, but can you at least try?"
"I can try. No promises."
"Well, I'm going to bed. Don't stay up too late, regardless of how much sleep you need."
Danny headed upstairs, and Taylor wondered what she should do. Oh, she hadn't been keeping up on the news, had she? Perhaps she should catch up on that, if only so that she didn't seem entirely out of the loop over the next few days. It didn't take long to switch to her favored news site, where the current 'front page' news was an Empire demonstration earlier in the day. It had been 'interrupted' by Mush and a group of merchants...who had merely asked them to move over a street so they could clear the storm drain. The demonstration had apparently fallen apart at that point, because neither side was looking to start a fight.
Taylor shook her head, and moved on. Apparently Canary had been cleared of deliberate wrongdoing, but testing had been done and precautions were being put in place for the future. Monitoring of those who had been present for live performances for an hour following them in particular, followed by use of a stripped-down version of the anti-master-effect devices that could tell them if there were problematic lingering effects. At the same time, someone had apparently suggested a secondary revenue stream of getting people who wanted to, say, quit smoking to attend a concert, then have a trusted individual 'suggest' that they do so after the concert. Apparently the suggestions were more likely to 'stick' if you wanted them to?
The only other thing she saw of interest was that they had sped up the work of getting people out of Madison and were hoping to clear it in the next couple of months. The sheer number of parahumans inside and the security needed to deal with them was the main slowdown at this point. Despite that things were apparently going well, and overall costs for dealing with the quarantine zone were decreasing despite the cost of the anti-master-effect device.
Once she was done catching up on the news she decided she might as well go to bed. Yeah, she'd probably be up early, but she could hit the gym and the junkyard.
Thursday morning Taylor woke up earlier than expected. Since she had plenty of time she decided to go make a more complicated breakfast. Half an hour later she'd gotten everything prepared to make pancakes with breakfast sausages. Once everything was ready she started cooking, and let the smell of breakfast cooking wake her father up. She even made sure to have some tea ready.
"Morning Taylor," Danny said as he wandered into the kitchen. "What's the occasion?"
"I was up early?" Taylor replied, shrugging as she checked the sausages, then moved to get him a cup of tea.
Talk over breakfast was slim, and despite having to get to work Danny insisted on cleaning up. And told her to go do something fun while he did it. Taylor sighed and went upstairs to get changed to head to the PRT building. She'd follow her thoughts from the night before and hit the gym and junkyard before her early afternoon patrol.
Jacob yawned as he checked his messages between sips of his coffee. Most of them were requests to bump various branches up in his schedule, usually for reasons that weren't really all that important. Though the request to bump Portland up might happen, since they were having trouble with a recent trigger they'd recruited.
His musing was interrupted by his phone ringing. He glared at it, but then sighed and picked it up after reading the caller ID. "Morning Jessica. What's up?"
"What have you been teaching your niece?" Jessica asked.
"Er, not much, and most of that was back just after she triggered. Why?"
"Have you seen the 'mock thesis paper' she submitted?"
"No? Not even sure what you're talking about, actually."
Jessica sighed. "I'm sending you a copy now. Background is that they want to get Taylor a certificate that lets her officially consult with therapists on powers, so they're shipping her out to get it under the guise of the mock thesis defense thing they do every year."
"Makes sense."
"So of course she has to submit a mock thesis. They're supposed to be horrible, insufficiently researched, and covering already known ground. Because what kind of high school student produces anything decent, right?"
"And you're surprised that my niece, who we both know has been re-writing the books, isn't following that pattern?"
"She used almost every existing study into how parahumans are affected by their powers to argue that parahumans have just as much of an effect on their powers."
Jacob blinked. He'd tried to find a link in that direction for a couple years, and given up on it. What the hell had Taylor seen in the studies that he hadn't? "How well did she present things?"
"She wrote nearly a hundred and seventy pages, and I'm only about a third of the way through. But so far everything is quite well reasoned. She focused on the trigger event as the primary influence point."
Jacob thought about that even as opened the email that had arrived with an attached document. "That just might work, I was looking for a longer-term influence. I'll start reading this shortly. Who else is looking at it?"
"Jameson and White were in the initial volunteer group, and I also blind-fired a copy off to Melissa. No clue if she's even noticed, or if the other two have shared it."
"Maybe you should send it to George too. If only because he's good at poking holes in things."
"And he'll ignore it for at least a week if you send it. Will do."
Taylor sat in the Wards common area, in costume, poking around online. She hadn't realized just how big a deal the 'mock thesis' thing was to some people, once she found the website describing it. There were six 'regions' currently running, one of them being 'Northeast'. There were 'awards' for the best and worst showings in each region, and the winners were listed over the entire five year period they'd been running the program. There were also a pile of honorable mentions, and one student who had gotten a certificate stating they knew their stuff.
She suspected that the goal was to use the entire thing as an excuse to get a second name in that list, regardless of if she had done well with her paper. After all, Legend had said that it was more talking to a couple of parahumans that would count, right? Huh, speaking of which, apparently sometimes you could meet famous capes at these things. She was kinda regretting not looking this thing up when she was at Winslow, but then again Winslow didn't participate.
"Hey Taylor," Missy said as she came over to the older girl after changing. "I got to show my parents my tricks yesterday."
"How'd they take it?" Taylor asked, closing the web browser she'd been using.
"Dad swore at the fact that I can't do that safely out of costume, at least until mom reminded him that parahuman abilities aren't allowed in the shooting competitions. Then he and mom spent some time swearing about that together."
"Huh. I wonder if there are any parahuman shooting competitions?"
"They had me check, there aren't. Most parahumans don't carry guns at all, and those that do usually have abilities that would be hard to judge against one another. There are maybe six I could find that could compete fairly against one another? Oh, and PHO doesn't know if Miss Militia should count, given that the gun is her power."
"She should count," Carlos said, coming over with a soda. "Since I know she carries a normal sidearm as well, in case she runs into a power nullifier. That said, I just got asked to change the patrol rotation and put Taylor on console. Something about a foreign cape having been spotted and an assassination order?"
"Well, we were told that the Gesellschaft apparently want me dead," Taylor said, shrugging. "Dunno why, but I can see why they might want to be cautious."
"You were due for a console shift anyway. I was going to have you take it Monday, but we'll see how things go."
"Works for me."
Taylor thought about it for a moment, and decided to try something. Most work on the console was done with the radio and one monitor, with a second monitor for doing non-console stuff. She didn't have the radio hardware the console did, but she did have bullshit access levels for a Ward. As such she remotely logged into the Wards console and got set up, right from her 'Maul' phone. She grinned when she ran through the 'radio test' and it worked fine through the remote audio link to her phone.
"Since we'll have me and not you," Carlos said, poking at his phone. "I think we'll go with a mixed route instead of the ground route. Maybe number nine?"
"Makes sense," Taylor said, loading it up on the console, only to get a warning. "No, not nine, it passes through where they've dug things up to get at a busted storm drain." She flipped through a couple more in the mixed routes. "Maybe twelve? It's almost nine backwards, but doesn't hit the work zone."
Carlos stared at his phone, then looked up at Taylor. "How can you tell that? None of that's showing up for me."
"The console's route selector shows warnings."
Carlos looked at the console, with nobody sitting at it. Then looked back at Taylor. "Ok, I'm calling bullshit."
"Remote access. Armsmaster showed me how."
"So you can run the console from the couch?"
"Apparently. Though I should really be sitting at it when you leave, as I can't hit the panic buttons from here."
"Yeah. Still calling it bullshit, but we'll go with twelve. Now where's Dennis?"
"He snuck in the back door a few minutes ago and is likely changing. Probably didn't want to be obviously late in showing up."
Carlos groaned and headed for the hallway, probably to yell at Dennis.
Apparently the Merchants were out in force today, as the patrol group had run into nine groups of them so far. Only one of said groups had pulled weapons on the patrol, the others had dispersed without complaint. This was odd enough that the PRT officer monitoring things thought it worth reporting right away, only to get told that the Protectorate had noticed the same thing.
Taylor poked Inference Engine, figuring it might have a good idea, only to get a call from Lisa. Some discussion back and forth, conferenced in so the PRT officer could participate, and they came to the conclusion that it was likely the Merchants were looking for something. They didn't have enough information to know what, though.
"Aegis to Console," came Carlos's voice over the radio. "Just spotted what looks like a fight between Empire and Merchant thugs, two blocks west of my position."
Taylor flagged it on the map at her end, only for the PRT officer to flag it as 'avoid if possible'. "Console acknowledges, avoid it if possible."
Really, out of now ten groups of Merchants they'd only found three violent ones, and this last one might have been started by the Empire side of things.
"I can't believe I actually helped out Mush," Missy said as the patrol group returned. "I mean, yeah, all I did was make the hole bigger so he could get out of the storm drain more easily, but still."
"At least the Merchants insisted on dealing with the cleanup themselves?" Dennis offered. "Granted, I think it was in part so we'd leave sooner, but still."
"I'm sending your notes now," Taylor said as she walked up to them. "Seventeen of twenty two gang interactions being peaceful is a bit weird, though."
"Would have been eighteen had that last group of Empire thugs not decided they needed to 'show their superiority'," Carlos said, shaking his head. "Thanks for the note taking, we really need to take advantage of that more often."
"No problem."
The four of them got changed and dispersed, Taylor putting the 'suitcase' lockbox that had arrived while she was occupied away in the process. Luckily it attached to one of the normal attachment points for weapons, so she didn't have to have Missy adjust anything.
Apparently today was a 'stuff gets delivered' day as she found her paper shredder sitting on the front porch at home. Then again, the paper shredder was a standard 'kept in stock' item for the PRT, so it shouldn't be that surprising that it showed up quickly. The fact that it was shipped from Boston probably sped things up.
She took the time to set it up and then prove it worked by shredding all the stuff she'd printed out for her 'thesis'. She was actually somewhat impressed with the near-dust level the thing reduced the papers down to. She was less impressed with how long it took to feed everything into it, but she wasn't expecting to need to shred a lot of stuff all that often.
"I wonder if I should do anything special with the remains," Taylor wondered as she fed the last sheet in. It wasn't like she needed to empty it now, but still something to think about. "Maybe there's a procedure for that I can look up."
Shaking her head, she sighed and picked up her tablet. Maybe she should see what other time wasting games existed?
Just over halfway down the list of apps she paused, staring at an icon. It was labeled new, as in it had been installed since she set up the tablet, but she didn't remember installing it. Well, there wasn't any harm in seeing what it was, right? So she launched the app to see what it was about.
"Hello?" Taylor finally said, answering just before the call would have gone to voicemail.
"How in the world did you get a gift onto my nightstand?" Riley asked.
Taylor thought about that. "I don't even know where you live."
"Then how is a small gift box sitting on my nightstand?"
"I'm gonna blame the box-moving snark." And apparently get up, because despite being six in the morning she probably wouldn't be getting any more sleep now. Besides, she apparently had a small pile of messages. "Stupid box-moving snark loves to mess with me, I think."
"But you were sending me something?"
"Yeah. Small thank you for the enhancements."
Taylor heard movement from the other end of the call even as she climbed out of bed. Screw it being rude in some way while on the phone, her bladder had decided it wanted to be emptied.
"Why did you get me a stupid locket?" Riley asked a couple minutes later. "I mean, yeah, I'm a girl, but I'm not usually that kind of girl?"
"Look behind the picture holders," Taylor said, yawning a moment later. Huh, she got the feeling the yawn didn't get sent to Riley. Neat.
"Holy crap, It's bigger on the inside. Where in the world did you get this? Why would you give it up instead of keeping it? This is incredible!"
"I figured you could use a place to hide little things that nobody would think much of. For my purposes I use a similarly upgraded utility belt, in and out of costume."
"You mean this is reproducible?"
"Yep."
"Does it work on people?"
"Don't think so. She's Manton limited." Taylor cleaned herself up and flushed before wandering back to her room and starting to flip through the messages on her phones. She did her best to ignore Riley's grumbling about all the fun stuff not working due to stupid limits.
"Wait, she?" Riley finally said, sounding slightly shocked. "Does that mean Vista did this?"
"Yeah. Unless you know of any other space warpers?"
"I've got to figure out how to meet her properly. Thanks for the gift, I'm going to go see what I can cram into it now. Bye!"
Taylor blinked as the call disconnected. Oh well. Lets see about those messages. Automated warning to all Wards, apparently she'd have to be careful if she wandered into the PRT on Wednesday as 'visitors' would be in the secure area. Notice from Carlos about classes on Wednesday and Friday of the following week for everyone but her and Missy, probably the gun safety stuff. Response from Dennis complaining that Carlos should be asleep at five thirty in the morning, not doing Wards leader stuff. Huh.
She drafted a quick response to Dennis explaining that his phone should have quiet-time options, and how to use them. And how to exclude certain contacts and 'high priority' messages from them, for that matter.
Moving on, a message from Uncle Jacob wanting to know what the hell she did to get Fred to open up that much in a first session. He was thankful for the note about his snark being willing to have him seriously prank and/or freak out capes instead of killing them outright, at least sometimes. The rest wasn't really new info, but the fact she got it out of Fred was impressive. She threw a reply that she cheated twice over, using information from his snark and information from Jessica's snark. She had a feeling she'd have to submit documentation on that at some point.
On her personal phone she had several junk messages that were just clever enough to bypass Arcadia's filters in her school account, and several alerts from PHO on her personal account. Most of which were people direct-messaging her questions, and would be ignored. But she'd have to go through and flag them properly, so she grabbed her tablet and headed downstairs. It would give her something to do over breakfast, at least.
An hour later she'd eaten, cleared her PHO messages, browsed for a bit, and finally given up and gone back upstairs to get back to work on her 'thesis'. Specifically, she started actually writing it, fleshing out the rough outline she'd already constructed. She'd double-check research as she went along at this point.
A few hours later Taylor made her way down to the kitchen to make lunch, setting her tablet on the counter so she could continue working. She went with a simple cold cut sub and a soda, and moved the tablet to the table when she was ready to eat. Considering things, she swapped a couple of sections in the outline so that the next section would come more naturally. Luckily this was the first pass, merely getting the general idea for each section into place. She'd flesh everything out later.
It took her three quarters of an hour to realize that she'd finished her lunch, at which point she took a few minutes to clean things up before heading back upstairs.
"Taylor?" Danny called, sticking his head into the room. Taylor was sitting with the tablet and both phones propped up on the desk and various printouts spread out in piles around her.
"Yeah?" Taylor replied, not really looking up.
"Have you been working on that all day?"
"Er, yes?" She then mumbled something about a study while she was flipping through a pile of printouts.
Danny sighed. "Ok, enough of that for now, come down for dinner." He waited a moment, then grabbed Taylor and pulled her out of the chair.
"Hey!"
"You're coming down and eating dinner, and the work is staying up here. No arguing."
Taylor grumbled as she was dragged downstairs. Yes, she could have gotten away from her father at any point, but then he'd probably just make her take a longer break. It turned out that they were having Chinese takeout. And apparently she was hungry, given how much she ate.
"So Taylor," Danny said as Taylor contemplated thirds. There was plenty, apparently her father had splurged a bit? "How far along in your paper are you?"
"Ummm," Taylor mumbled as she grabbed another piece of boneless pork. She chewed as she thought about things, then swallowed. "I finished the very rough draft and was starting to flesh things out. I think I'm twenty or so pages into that? Maybe fifteen percent done on the first pass."
Danny stared at Taylor. "From what I was told about this, they're expecting maybe fifty pages. Not over a hundred."
"I don't think I can properly argue the points I'm making in fifty pages."
"Perhaps you're arguing too many points?"
"They're all connected to the central premise. If I'm going to do this I'm doing it right."
Danny sighed. "Just don't burn yourself out, ok?"
"I'll try not to."
Taylor ended up finishing off the beef teriyaki and the chicken, but there was plenty of rice and quite a bit of pork left for some other time. Then again, the rice worked out quite nicely when frozen, so over-ordering wasn't generally an issue. Once that was done she helped clean up, then went back upstairs with a glass of water to get back to work.
Rebecca glared at the filled water bulb on the rainbow rose bush on her desk. She had gone to check on something in person, and the bulb was filled when she returned. "I see I need to talk to Contessa about visiting when I'm here again."
Shaking her head, she sat down and checked for new messages. Oh, good, Montreal had finalized their 'purchase' of one of the anti-master systems, which would hopefully prove effective against Heartbreaker's thralls. It was too bad that their two test subjects showed that the children tended to have too much damage to properly recover, but at least they came out of it with a partial resistance to masters in general as a side effect.
"Good evening Rebecca," Contessa said, stepping out of the hole in spacetime that had appeared a moment before. Rebecca wasn't expecting her, and it looked like she was carrying a watering can...
"I thought you'd already been by," Rebecca said, gesturing at the rose bush. "Given that the water bulb in my rose bush is already filled?"
Contessa blinked, then moved to the desk. She tapped the water bulb a couple of times, and it was indeed filled. "But...how? That path still thinks I need to fill this one. But now it's confused, because I obviously don't."
Rebecca paled. If the path still thought it needed watering...
Five minutes later the entire building was locked down for an emergency top-level Master/Stranger scan. It wouldn't turn anything up, and David had been caught on camera during the time he would have needed to get away to water the bush. The mystery would go unsolved, and would get worse over time as every so often one of the bushes would be watered before Contessa could get to them.
Tuesday Taylor made her way into the PRT building and had lunch there before her patrol. She had, reluctantly, left her 'thesis' work at home. She was using the printouts and handwritten notes on them too much to work on it anywhere else right now.
It wasn't long after she had finished eating that Chris and Dean arrived, though Brian was apparently running a little late. Then again, he was running the console and didn't have power armor to get into.
"So far so good," Dean said a little later as he moved around a bit. "Seems like everything's working today."
"Armsmaster said it was only a failure of one of the gaskets that led to water shorting out the control leads," Chris said. "So technically we won't know for sure until you get it wet. Isn't it nice that it's raining?"
Dean stopped moving around, and turned to Chris. "You had to say something, didn't you? Now I'm going to be slightly stressed until we get back, not sure if things are going to lock up again."
"It's a short patrol primarily to show a few Wards around and test the repair. So yes, I did."
"Just be glad they have a van on standby in case something goes wrong," Taylor added. "Though, are we bringing the tool we used to get you out before?"
"I have it right here," Chris said, turning his hoverboard to show the tool clamped to the side. "The van will have one too, just in case."
"At least we're prepared," Dean muttered.
"Where's Brian?" Chris asked. "Since he's supposed to be running the console and all?"
"No clue," Taylor replied, causing the other two to look at her. "What? I have a maximum range. He's not inside of it."
"And you haven't checked in with him anyway?" Chris asked.
"Why would I be checking with him? You're today's patrol leader, since the primary purpose is to ensure that the repairs on Dean's tinkertech armor are ok. I figured if he checked with any of us it would be you. Barring that, I'd expect Carlos to let you know if he heard anything."
"She's got a point," Dean added. "We really should be asking you where he is."
Chris sighed, then headed over to the console, probably to check if the PRT officer had any news. A few minutes later he came back, frowning. "Looks like Brian's in the hospital. PRT got wind of it in the past half hour or so. Apparently he's got food poisoning, and his sister and one of their neighbors were brought in with him. PRT had someone ready to handle console stuff anyway, so we can get going anytime."
"I don't know who to be sorry for," Taylor said, causing the other two to look at her. "I don't want to be sorry for the cook who shouldn't have let it happen, so if it was one of them?"
Dean snorted even as Chris sighed. The three did their console checks, then headed out.
Taylor groaned as she entered the house, having been dropped off by Dean. Whose armor had performed wonderfully. Chris's, on the other hand, had shorted out. He'd done a field repair, and then it'd shorted out again. When they made it back to the PRT building he'd discovered that he had gotten the ratios wrong on the sealant he'd used. Specifically, his dyscalculia had apparently bit him when he scaled up the amounts of the multi-part mixture, so the stuff hadn't set properly and had started dissolving in the rain.
Luckily they hadn't had to lug him and his armor back to the PRT themselves. The tool brought in case of failure with Dean's armor let them deal with the couple of bits that didn't fall apart outright. Then they'd only had to lug it into the van that came to pick them up. And then back out of it onto a cart at the PRT building, and finally off of the cart and into his tinker workshop when the cart Chris had grabbed proved to be a poor choice that wouldn't fit through the door.
After that they'd changed back into civilian attire to visit Brian in the hospital. Once there they found out that his neighbor had invited him and Aisha over for dinner, but hadn't realized that a couple of ingredients were past their use-by dates. The end result was all three of them ending up sick. They might have said hello to Aisha, but she was asleep.
Amy probably would have fixed them right up, but she wasn't scheduled to visit, and it wasn't an emergency for any of them. Barring someone coming in with something worse they were on their own. They'd still likely be out of the hospital the following day, as at this point they were mainly there for observation.
Taylor sighed as she prepared dinner for herself. Her father had called shortly after they'd left the hospital to let her know that they'd found a leak in a document storage room. He'd be running late while they ensured that the documents were moved to another room. Of course, he also made her promise to eat dinner before going back to her paper.
Once she had eaten and cleaned up, thus feeling she had properly dealt with the promise she'd made, she retreated to her room and got back to work. The paper was due in two days, after all.
Wednesday Taylor woke up, had breakfast with her father, and then got back to work on her paper. As far as she was concerned it needed to be basically done today so that she could submit it before her patrol tomorrow. Her 'breaks' during the day were mainly chore-related, in that she moved laundry through the machines and took time to do some folding.
Lunch was mainly leftover pork and rice with some bread. It was eaten downstairs with her work left upstairs, even if there was no chance of her father knowing she hadn't put stuff down long enough to eat. Once that was done she went right back into things.
By the time her father arrived home she had reached a point where she felt she had actually run out of things to add, fix, or expand upon. They had dinner, with minimal small talk, and then she sat down, in the living room, to read over what she had from start to finish.
Her father noticed when she put the tablet down. "So, you done?"
"I think so," Taylor replied. "A full hundred and sixty eight pages."
"Have you submitted it yet?"
"No? I haven't had anyone else look over it."
"Would anyone else in the area understand it?"
Taylor thought about that. "Maybe Doctor Yamada? Otherwise not really."
"Then submit it so that you're done with it, and then I recommend you get some sleep. Don't think I haven't noticed that you've been staying up late and getting up early."
"After the first time waking up in a pile of case studies I cut back. I just don't need as much sleep since Amy and Riley worked on me." Regardless of that, she picked up the tablet and dug up the 'how to submit' instructions. It didn't take long, and ten minutes later she had a confirmation message that the file had been accepted.
"Well, at least find something that isn't 'work' to do," Danny said, getting up. "I'd like you to avoid anything involving school or information in the PRT systems for the rest of the week, honestly. Not sure I can expect you to hold to that, but can you at least try?"
"I can try. No promises."
"Well, I'm going to bed. Don't stay up too late, regardless of how much sleep you need."
Danny headed upstairs, and Taylor wondered what she should do. Oh, she hadn't been keeping up on the news, had she? Perhaps she should catch up on that, if only so that she didn't seem entirely out of the loop over the next few days. It didn't take long to switch to her favored news site, where the current 'front page' news was an Empire demonstration earlier in the day. It had been 'interrupted' by Mush and a group of merchants...who had merely asked them to move over a street so they could clear the storm drain. The demonstration had apparently fallen apart at that point, because neither side was looking to start a fight.
Taylor shook her head, and moved on. Apparently Canary had been cleared of deliberate wrongdoing, but testing had been done and precautions were being put in place for the future. Monitoring of those who had been present for live performances for an hour following them in particular, followed by use of a stripped-down version of the anti-master-effect devices that could tell them if there were problematic lingering effects. At the same time, someone had apparently suggested a secondary revenue stream of getting people who wanted to, say, quit smoking to attend a concert, then have a trusted individual 'suggest' that they do so after the concert. Apparently the suggestions were more likely to 'stick' if you wanted them to?
The only other thing she saw of interest was that they had sped up the work of getting people out of Madison and were hoping to clear it in the next couple of months. The sheer number of parahumans inside and the security needed to deal with them was the main slowdown at this point. Despite that things were apparently going well, and overall costs for dealing with the quarantine zone were decreasing despite the cost of the anti-master-effect device.
Once she was done catching up on the news she decided she might as well go to bed. Yeah, she'd probably be up early, but she could hit the gym and the junkyard.
Thursday morning Taylor woke up earlier than expected. Since she had plenty of time she decided to go make a more complicated breakfast. Half an hour later she'd gotten everything prepared to make pancakes with breakfast sausages. Once everything was ready she started cooking, and let the smell of breakfast cooking wake her father up. She even made sure to have some tea ready.
"Morning Taylor," Danny said as he wandered into the kitchen. "What's the occasion?"
"I was up early?" Taylor replied, shrugging as she checked the sausages, then moved to get him a cup of tea.
Talk over breakfast was slim, and despite having to get to work Danny insisted on cleaning up. And told her to go do something fun while he did it. Taylor sighed and went upstairs to get changed to head to the PRT building. She'd follow her thoughts from the night before and hit the gym and junkyard before her early afternoon patrol.
Jacob yawned as he checked his messages between sips of his coffee. Most of them were requests to bump various branches up in his schedule, usually for reasons that weren't really all that important. Though the request to bump Portland up might happen, since they were having trouble with a recent trigger they'd recruited.
His musing was interrupted by his phone ringing. He glared at it, but then sighed and picked it up after reading the caller ID. "Morning Jessica. What's up?"
"What have you been teaching your niece?" Jessica asked.
"Er, not much, and most of that was back just after she triggered. Why?"
"Have you seen the 'mock thesis paper' she submitted?"
"No? Not even sure what you're talking about, actually."
Jessica sighed. "I'm sending you a copy now. Background is that they want to get Taylor a certificate that lets her officially consult with therapists on powers, so they're shipping her out to get it under the guise of the mock thesis defense thing they do every year."
"Makes sense."
"So of course she has to submit a mock thesis. They're supposed to be horrible, insufficiently researched, and covering already known ground. Because what kind of high school student produces anything decent, right?"
"And you're surprised that my niece, who we both know has been re-writing the books, isn't following that pattern?"
"She used almost every existing study into how parahumans are affected by their powers to argue that parahumans have just as much of an effect on their powers."
Jacob blinked. He'd tried to find a link in that direction for a couple years, and given up on it. What the hell had Taylor seen in the studies that he hadn't? "How well did she present things?"
"She wrote nearly a hundred and seventy pages, and I'm only about a third of the way through. But so far everything is quite well reasoned. She focused on the trigger event as the primary influence point."
Jacob thought about that even as opened the email that had arrived with an attached document. "That just might work, I was looking for a longer-term influence. I'll start reading this shortly. Who else is looking at it?"
"Jameson and White were in the initial volunteer group, and I also blind-fired a copy off to Melissa. No clue if she's even noticed, or if the other two have shared it."
"Maybe you should send it to George too. If only because he's good at poking holes in things."
"And he'll ignore it for at least a week if you send it. Will do."
Taylor sat in the Wards common area, in costume, poking around online. She hadn't realized just how big a deal the 'mock thesis' thing was to some people, once she found the website describing it. There were six 'regions' currently running, one of them being 'Northeast'. There were 'awards' for the best and worst showings in each region, and the winners were listed over the entire five year period they'd been running the program. There were also a pile of honorable mentions, and one student who had gotten a certificate stating they knew their stuff.
She suspected that the goal was to use the entire thing as an excuse to get a second name in that list, regardless of if she had done well with her paper. After all, Legend had said that it was more talking to a couple of parahumans that would count, right? Huh, speaking of which, apparently sometimes you could meet famous capes at these things. She was kinda regretting not looking this thing up when she was at Winslow, but then again Winslow didn't participate.
"Hey Taylor," Missy said as she came over to the older girl after changing. "I got to show my parents my tricks yesterday."
"How'd they take it?" Taylor asked, closing the web browser she'd been using.
"Dad swore at the fact that I can't do that safely out of costume, at least until mom reminded him that parahuman abilities aren't allowed in the shooting competitions. Then he and mom spent some time swearing about that together."
"Huh. I wonder if there are any parahuman shooting competitions?"
"They had me check, there aren't. Most parahumans don't carry guns at all, and those that do usually have abilities that would be hard to judge against one another. There are maybe six I could find that could compete fairly against one another? Oh, and PHO doesn't know if Miss Militia should count, given that the gun is her power."
"She should count," Carlos said, coming over with a soda. "Since I know she carries a normal sidearm as well, in case she runs into a power nullifier. That said, I just got asked to change the patrol rotation and put Taylor on console. Something about a foreign cape having been spotted and an assassination order?"
"Well, we were told that the Gesellschaft apparently want me dead," Taylor said, shrugging. "Dunno why, but I can see why they might want to be cautious."
"You were due for a console shift anyway. I was going to have you take it Monday, but we'll see how things go."
"Works for me."
Taylor thought about it for a moment, and decided to try something. Most work on the console was done with the radio and one monitor, with a second monitor for doing non-console stuff. She didn't have the radio hardware the console did, but she did have bullshit access levels for a Ward. As such she remotely logged into the Wards console and got set up, right from her 'Maul' phone. She grinned when she ran through the 'radio test' and it worked fine through the remote audio link to her phone.
"Since we'll have me and not you," Carlos said, poking at his phone. "I think we'll go with a mixed route instead of the ground route. Maybe number nine?"
"Makes sense," Taylor said, loading it up on the console, only to get a warning. "No, not nine, it passes through where they've dug things up to get at a busted storm drain." She flipped through a couple more in the mixed routes. "Maybe twelve? It's almost nine backwards, but doesn't hit the work zone."
Carlos stared at his phone, then looked up at Taylor. "How can you tell that? None of that's showing up for me."
"The console's route selector shows warnings."
Carlos looked at the console, with nobody sitting at it. Then looked back at Taylor. "Ok, I'm calling bullshit."
"Remote access. Armsmaster showed me how."
"So you can run the console from the couch?"
"Apparently. Though I should really be sitting at it when you leave, as I can't hit the panic buttons from here."
"Yeah. Still calling it bullshit, but we'll go with twelve. Now where's Dennis?"
"He snuck in the back door a few minutes ago and is likely changing. Probably didn't want to be obviously late in showing up."
Carlos groaned and headed for the hallway, probably to yell at Dennis.
Apparently the Merchants were out in force today, as the patrol group had run into nine groups of them so far. Only one of said groups had pulled weapons on the patrol, the others had dispersed without complaint. This was odd enough that the PRT officer monitoring things thought it worth reporting right away, only to get told that the Protectorate had noticed the same thing.
Taylor poked Inference Engine, figuring it might have a good idea, only to get a call from Lisa. Some discussion back and forth, conferenced in so the PRT officer could participate, and they came to the conclusion that it was likely the Merchants were looking for something. They didn't have enough information to know what, though.
"Aegis to Console," came Carlos's voice over the radio. "Just spotted what looks like a fight between Empire and Merchant thugs, two blocks west of my position."
Taylor flagged it on the map at her end, only for the PRT officer to flag it as 'avoid if possible'. "Console acknowledges, avoid it if possible."
Really, out of now ten groups of Merchants they'd only found three violent ones, and this last one might have been started by the Empire side of things.
"I can't believe I actually helped out Mush," Missy said as the patrol group returned. "I mean, yeah, all I did was make the hole bigger so he could get out of the storm drain more easily, but still."
"At least the Merchants insisted on dealing with the cleanup themselves?" Dennis offered. "Granted, I think it was in part so we'd leave sooner, but still."
"I'm sending your notes now," Taylor said as she walked up to them. "Seventeen of twenty two gang interactions being peaceful is a bit weird, though."
"Would have been eighteen had that last group of Empire thugs not decided they needed to 'show their superiority'," Carlos said, shaking his head. "Thanks for the note taking, we really need to take advantage of that more often."
"No problem."
The four of them got changed and dispersed, Taylor putting the 'suitcase' lockbox that had arrived while she was occupied away in the process. Luckily it attached to one of the normal attachment points for weapons, so she didn't have to have Missy adjust anything.
Apparently today was a 'stuff gets delivered' day as she found her paper shredder sitting on the front porch at home. Then again, the paper shredder was a standard 'kept in stock' item for the PRT, so it shouldn't be that surprising that it showed up quickly. The fact that it was shipped from Boston probably sped things up.
She took the time to set it up and then prove it worked by shredding all the stuff she'd printed out for her 'thesis'. She was actually somewhat impressed with the near-dust level the thing reduced the papers down to. She was less impressed with how long it took to feed everything into it, but she wasn't expecting to need to shred a lot of stuff all that often.
"I wonder if I should do anything special with the remains," Taylor wondered as she fed the last sheet in. It wasn't like she needed to empty it now, but still something to think about. "Maybe there's a procedure for that I can look up."
Shaking her head, she sighed and picked up her tablet. Maybe she should see what other time wasting games existed?
Just over halfway down the list of apps she paused, staring at an icon. It was labeled new, as in it had been installed since she set up the tablet, but she didn't remember installing it. Well, there wasn't any harm in seeing what it was, right? So she launched the app to see what it was about.
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