Taylor woke slowly, with a mild headache. Which was abnormal enough as of late to take note of. As her phones connected to her, or she connected to her phones, or whatever she noted that it was ten in the morning. Nice to know, but she was more concerned with other details. Like the two bodies she seemed to know every intimate detail of, or the fact that two of the six parahumans in her range had multiple snarks sitting on top of each other. Not to mention that these two categories of people seemed to overlap.
The fact that she was one of those two just made her more concerned. Equally concerning was that Amy was the other. The fact that they both seemed to have Shaper and Broadcast Administrator hinted at part of what the two snarks had been planning. Not what she expected for getting Amy able to check on her health remotely, but it was likely not a bad thing overall if it let Amy get healing as well. Unknown on the good, bad, or otherwise front was that they both had a third, familiar-looking but not quite known snark as well. Very similar, but not quite the same?
Hello?
<Data><Excitement><Query>
Ok, that wasn't working. Apparently being on top of each other means I can't tell you apart?
There was a momentary pause, and a sensation of something changing.
<BA: Query>
Ok, I can tell that was Broadcast Administrator. What about Shaper?
<S: Excitement>
Heh, ok, I can see why you're excited, finally getting to monitor me without having to have Amy touch me. So, third snark, who are you?
<UMR: Data. Query>
Understanding, Maintenance, Repair? Huh. And I don't think I have anything to work on right now, unless you think my Bluetooth organ needs work.
<UMR: Query>
<S: Data>
<UMR: Data>
Taylor blinked. Huh. Ok, Bluetooth organ needed no work. Good to know. And all of a sudden she seemed to just know how it worked as well, actually. So, Shaper, what are the chances of us being able to build one of those for Amy now?
<S: Excitement>
Heh, figures it would be excited, even if there was a tinge of annoyance. They'd probably need Riley to help assemble it still. Now then, let's see. Shaper, can you label your switch a little better than just On and Off? I don't want to confuse it with other things.
<S: Agreement>
There we go, less likely to confuse it with the 'ignore insubstantial stuff' switch. Hmmm... Where's my line of sight mode?
<BA: ...Embarrassment. Data>
You weren't ready to connect to Amy like Shaper was preparing to connect to me, but you found out you had to at the last second to balance things out, so to make it work you gave her the line of sight mode and left me with the area mode?
<BA: Agreement>
<S: Data>
<BA: Elaboration>
Huh. Shaper had prepared a secondary 'backup' connection setup ahead of time and dropped Taylor's specs in it during the disruption, which was to ensure that everything would work right by cheating and copying Amy's original trigger parameters. With a need to ensure enough separation so that they could heal each other, but they had to turn their own striker functionality off to be affected by the other. But Broadcast Administrator had quickly split the line of sight mode off as a hasty hack and shored it up afterwards, so that ended up lopsided.
So, what happens if I poke you over at Amy?
<BA: Data>
Responses will come from the closest instance of a snark available in multiple places. Good to know. Now then, Amy's third snark, hello?
[Greetings]
Huh, the identifiers only applied to her own snarks. Though if Broadcast Administrator thought that through it would hopefully also apply to anyone else she ran into with multiple snarks.
<BA: Contemplation>
Right, apparently it was still thinking about it. Back to the last new snark.
So, what do you do for Amy?
[Data]
Huh. Implants and Prosthetics? Is that because she wanted to figure out the Bluetooth thing so much?
[Agreement]
Well, that made sense. She probably got her configuration because of concerns over maintaining her jump harness coupled with the tinker fugues. Speaking of which, they'd have to discuss getting Amy upgraded now. On the other hand, there were now some additional problems to consider.
Er, how many extra urges are Amy and I going to get now?
<BA: Data>
<S: Elaboration>
<UMR: Data>
[Data]
Huh. That was odd. She wasn't going to complain about Broadcast Administrator and Shaper allowing either of them to fulfill their urges, meaning that they didn't have to change their routines, but the two tinker snarks... Why don't you two tinker snarks want us to do much of anything?
<UMR: Data>
[Elaboration]
<UMR: Agreement>
Huh. Prototype must be Leet's snark, and apparently these two were forcibly split off when it was in a 'I pushed too hard' angst state of sorts, so they inherited a 'whatever, use me if you want' attitude, beyond a gradual buildup that would likely be trivial to clear. Still, that did leave a question.
Forcibly split off?
<UMR: Data>
Something attacked Prototype while it was thrashing about, but you don't know what. Well, Leet was over there in the next room, so might as well check. Hey Prototype, do you know what attacked you?
{Negation. Gratitude}
Er, you're welcome. So are you going to play more nicely with Leet?
{Agreement. Data}
Huh. You've added 'repair and maintain' as options, and have adjusted things so the final product counts more than the individual components. Good on you.
{Elaboration}
Well, Leet was probably going to be ecstatic. Repair, maintenance, less restrictive, and his snark cleared the list of things he'd already built so that he has a fresh start without the crippling. Even if he still has the 'only build each thing once' limit and it was just at a different point.
I'll try to make sure he knows.
With all of that taken care of, Taylor realized that she kinda had a full bladder. So she finally opened her eyes. Only to realize her head was strapped into Colin's brain scanner thing.
<UMR: Objection>
Ok, Colin's neuroimaging scanner thing. Whatever. Well, he was nearby, right? Let's see, her phones were available even if her visor wasn't on her. So Maul phone, text messaging, Armsmaster. Send "I'm awake and would like the scanner removed." And wait for him to come over.
"Good morning Maul," Colin said as he came in a minute later. "Let me get you out of that so that you can sit up." He quickly had her disconnected and able to lean forward again. "Now then, we're hoping you can tell us what happened?"
"That needs to wait," Taylor replied. She didn't have anything stuck in her, so she swung her legs off of the bed. "I have urgent needs that must be dealt with first."
"Finding out what happened is more important than anything else you had planned."
"Well, I'm not wearing a diaper, so I'm going to have to disagree."
Taylor took advantage of Colin being dumbfounded to dart into the toilet area of the room and pull the door shut against it. At least she hadn't needed to go down the hall.
"I apologize for my poor bedside manner," Colin said as Taylor came out a few minutes later. "In hindsight your needs were obvious. I've also let a nurse know to bring some food."
"Thank you," Taylor replied, sitting back down on the bed.
"Also, before we get into details, do you happen to have any insight into when Panacea will wake up?"
"Huh, that's a good question. Gimme a moment."
Why does it look like Amy has extra damage still being fixed in her brain?
<BA: Data>
Oooh, yeah. I can see how being a little too heavy-handed with the linking could cause problems. Ouch.
<S: Query>
I...don't think she'd like me to do that, with her views on messing with brains and all.
<S: ...Reluctant Agreement>
How long before you two think she'll be up?
<BA: Data>
<S: Correction>
<BA: Agreement>
"She was hit a little harder than I was," Taylor said. "But she should be up by one?"
<S: Request>
Ok, I don't think she'll complain about that. I'll see about taking care of it when I'm done with Colin.
"I'll make note of that," Colin replied. "Now then, what can you tell me about what happened?"
"To put it bluntly?" Taylor said, thinking about it. She wanted to talk to Amy before mentioning their adjusted powers. "Leet's snark was trying to kill him for reasons that were the snark's fault. Once that was pointed out to it and it thought over its own actions it kinda went crazy. With me being linked to it and Panacea we got hit as well."
"I see. Is it safe for you to check with his snark? Leet's recovery has been a lot slower."
"Oh, yeah. I already poked it and found it will be a lot, er, fairer? I can see about checking his recovery, but I don't know if his snark has the information needed to speed things up."
"No rush unless you feel it is urgent, as I believe Panacea will need to wake up before you can go into details with it anyway. I'll go let people know that you're up, and that Panacea should be up soon. The nurse should be by with food shortly."
Huh, she didn't really need Amy to wake up now, did she? But revealing that without talking to Amy was something she was avoiding. Still, as Colin left she got up and poked Amy. Huh, she could tell that she could do a lot, but she kept herself to ensuring that Amy wouldn't mess herself before she woke.
She was doing her best to ignore all the other things she had felt when she'd flipped the 'Striker' switch. No wonder Amy liked the thing.
It turned out that the 'kids' of New Wave had been running a patrol loop just out of Taylor's range when she woke up, and her father was asleep down the hall. Interestingly, none of them appeared to have been informed that Taylor was awake, though the nurse mentioned letting her father get his sleep after being up most of the night.
After she'd eaten she finally noticed the little notes on the window, the door, next to the door, and stuck to the pile of her equipment on a nearby chair. All of them said the same thing, that she and Amy had to stay close together for a few days, or so the Think Tank claimed anyway.
Do you know what's up with that?
<BA: ...Assumption. Data>
Wait, until you and Shaper have stabilized, you in particular due to your rush job, if we're out of my area range we could both have a catastrophic disconnect?
<BA: Agreement>
Yeah, she was definitely keeping closer tabs on snark plans that could affect her from now on.
<BA: Query>
Sure, go ahead and see if Leet's snark could use the info.
<UMR: Query>
[Query]
Oh, right, you two don't have it either.
<BA: Data>
<UMR: Excitement>[Excitement]{Excitement}
While that was happening, perhaps she should see who else needed to know she was awake?
"Ugh," Amy groaned as she woke up.
"Good afternoon," Taylor said, poking through Amy's PRT file. Striker what!?! "I'm sure you'll very shortly have questions, but you should probably hit the toilet first."
Amy blinked, then apparently realized that Taylor was right and got out of the bed to head over to the toilet. A couple minutes later she came out, and looked at Taylor oddly.
"I don't know what I want to know more," she finally admitted.
"To summarize, then," Taylor said. "Leet's snark, Prototype, went nuts. Our snarks took advantage of the disruption his caused to implement their plan for remote monitoring of my health, giving me a connection to Shaper in the process. Only they found that they had to balance that out, so you got a hastily assembled, unplanned connection to Broadcast Administrator. And at some point in the middle Prototype was attacked, and we each got a piece that broke off."
"I thought you sensed snarks in an area, but I seem to only be able to see yours when I look at you?"
"Yeah, you got the line of sight mode I wasn't using. It's a dirty hack compared to what Shaper was ready for, and until things settle we kinda have to stick near each other because of some of that. At least a few days, and we're thinking a week might be better."
"What happens if we don't?"
"We probably die when at least one snark is forcibly disconnected from each of us."
Amy paled. "Yeah. Let's not do that." A moment later she got an odd look on her face.
Amy: Am I doing this right?
<BA: Agreement>
Taylor: Hey, I 'heard' that!
Amy: Woah. That's freaky.
<S: Greetings>
[Greetings]
Amy: Er, hello. Nice to meet you two as well.
"That's going to take some getting used to," Amy said aloud, shaking her head. "What else have you figured out?"
"We can use Shaper on each other if the 'Striker' switch is turned off," Taylor said. "Beyond that? Leet will be very, very happy."
"Do you always feel everything near your body?"
"Ah, that must mean at least some of the blunt force projection is working. Broadcast Administrator thought it would, but wasn't actually positive." Taylor grabbed her foam baton from her belt and tossed it to Amy. "See how this feels."
"That's, huh." Amy swung it a couple of times, then bopped Taylor over the head from range. "So that's how that works. I take it that other switch I didn't have before is how you determine if you go through Vicky's shield?"
"Yep."
Amy threw the foam baton back to Taylor, then went and sat on her bed. "So, what now?"
"Now we decide what to tell people. They don't expect you up for another almost half hour, I think. Your healing sped up a little when we got Implants and Prosthetics up to speed on the brain healing trick."
"Implants and...oh, my new snark. Huh. And yours is Understanding, Maintenance, and Repair? How is that already labeled?"
"I think we share labels. One snark, two connections and all. As a side benefit of that, we don't both have to placate the needs of the shared snarks, instead we both contribute now."
"Huh."
In the end they'd decided they had to come clean about the changes, if only because it would be better than revealing them later. They'd also determined that between them they could get Amy some, but not all, of the upgrades Taylor had on their own, since they still needed Riley for a few pieces. And Amy wanted all of it, so they were going to have see about getting Riley around.
Now if only Taylor hadn't mentioned her other plan, now that they could upgrade Amy. That grin was probably going to make any explosions over what happened worse.
"Taylor!" Danny said as he barged into the room. A nurse had finally woken him up, since the two girls only really wanted to explain things once.
"Sorry I worried you," Taylor said, hugging her father. "Didn't mean to, but, well..."
"These things happen, yeah. So, what did happen?"
"We're kinda hoping to only go through it all once, so we're waiting on Carol and Sarah at a minimum. And we want to record it, so we can just hand the video over to whomever needs it."
"I assume that more than the brief summary you gave earlier occurred?" Colin said.
"Yeah. I figured I should clear things with Amy before revealing everything."
"Sensible, and understandable if it affects both of you. I suppose we should move to the conference room, then?"
They moved down the hall to the conference room, quickly cleaning up the remnants of it being used by Danny and the 'on-shift' New Wave members. Taylor set her camera up on a nail that had been left in the wall and ensured that everything looked good through it with her phone. She'd be wearing her visor and using the phone-side controls to trigger recording. She and Amy would be sitting in the middle of one of the long sides of the table, the only ones in the camera's view. The others present would be 'off-screen' to either side.
Despite being a conference room, it wasn't large, so they had to be picky about who got to stick around. Danny was a given as Taylor's father. Carol would be sitting in as Amy's guardian when she arrived, and Sarah was going to attend as New Wave's 'leader' at the same time. Colin and Miss Militia were going to be there in their official capacities as well. The last two available seats were currently 'in contention', it would have been one if Colin wasn't going to be standing due to no power-armor rated seats being available. And that was sticking him in the corner.
All three of the younger members of New Wave wanted in, as did both Assault and Battery. And Battery was winning the argument, due to having been present for the initial incident, leaving one seat for the other four. A seat that Taylor thought just got claimed, not that anyone else knew it, since Jessica had just entered her range.
A couple of minutes later Jessica entered the secure area, and made her way towards the conference room. Only to enter with Director Piggot. Well, so much for the last two seats, which the group of five seemed to all realize.
"Good afternoon," Director Piggot said, claiming one of the empty seats. "As I understand it there's going to be a briefing about what actually happened here yesterday. Doctor Yamada and I felt we should be present."
The three members of New Wave and two Protectorate members sighed and went to secure the outside of the building, even as Carol and Sarah entered Taylor's range together, quickly clearing the security checkpoint and coming down.
"Amy," Carol said as she came in, grabbing Amy in a hug. Which seemed to shock Amy quite a bit. "Don't do that to us!"
Amy: Help?
Taylor: Why?
Amy: She isn't usually a hugger when it comes to me! What do I do?
Taylor sighed. It was nice that they were adjusting to the shared connection to Broadcast Administrator already, at least. As for Carol, she'd recommend 'hug back' if Amy's arms weren't already pinned to her sides. So distract Carol it was. "Hello Carol, Sarah."
"Oh, Taylor," Carol said, releasing Amy. And grabbing Taylor. Huh, was that alcohol on her breath? That might explain things. "I'm so happy you're alright too!"
"Carol," Sarah sighed. "Please stop embarrassing everyone?"
"I'd like it if we could get started," Director Piggot added. Strangely, that was what caused Carol to let go of Taylor.
Everyone took the seats they would be using, and the door was shut. It was explained that Taylor and Amy would first explain things as a 'video report', then questions would be asked by the others. This would allow the initial report to be more easily split off if necessary. As such, once everyone was ready Taylor double-checked the camera framing, then started the recording.
"Today is Saturday, April 23rd, 2011," Taylor started. "Yesterday afternoon an incident occurred while local parahuman 'Leet' was being treated by Panacea and his snark questioned by myself. During this his snark had a revelation and, in effect, went temporarily mad. I remained connected to his snark in an attempt to get it to calm down, which failed. I was also connected to Panacea's snark in case of a need for fast response on my part."
"During this event Leet's gemma started reacting significantly," Amy continued. "This was despite his being unconscious. Things progressed to the unexpected point of his snark lashing out at anything it could, something which we couldn't react to in time. This appeared to others in the area as a 'corrupted' trigger event, but due to the connection to his snark our connections were disrupted, knocking us out."
"Our snarks were waiting for something like this to happen, and put a plan they had been working on in motion. Specifically, they had been looking for a way to allow Panacea to check my health remotely. Most of their discussions had occurred while we were either sleeping or focused on other things, and until yesterday did not appear to be leading to anything of use. They jumped into action and started implementing their plan, only to run into complications."
"To add to that, at the same time Leet's snark was still lashing out, and something attacked it. It fractured, and two of the pieces attached themselves to Maul and I. At the same time my snark was attaching itself to Maul, and Maul's snark was hastily putting together a way to connect to me. That had not originally been planned, but the two snarks had determined that they needed to 'balance' the connection."
"As a result of this we now both have access to Panacea's Striker abilities and my Blaster abilities. I retain the 'area sense' mode of my Trump abilities, while Panacea has ended up with the 'line of sight' mode. This means I can no longer isolate myself from the snark sense by switching to line of sight mode and closing my eyes, while Panacea cannot trigger things such as fugues."
"The combined link does allow both of us to communicate with any snark the other has connected to, as well as with each other. Both of our biologies are visible to each of us at all times, and anything either of us is in contact with will appear to the other. We suspect that we'll be able to identify where the other is at all times as well. We also obtained two different tinker specialties, with a low desire for use. My specialty is apparently Implants and Prosthetics."
"And mine is Understanding, Maintenance, and Repair. We believe these were chosen by the fragments based on our mental states, with Panacea trying to figure out the Bluetooth module in my brain being primarily responsible for her specialty. Mine appears to have been triggered by a combination of my previous 'role' in the multi-tinker fugues and my concerns over maintaining my own equipment, such as the jump harness I use."
With all of that said, the two sat back to let it sink in. The questions would likely start soon.
"That," Colin said, shaking his head. "That is complete and utter BULLSHIT!" Everyone turned to look at him oddly. "What? It had to be said, and Assault and Clockblocker aren't here."
"He kinda has a point," Jessica admitted. "The two of them just picked up pretty much all of each other's ratings, plus a Tinker rating on top of it. What do you do with two Striker 12/Trump 8/Blaster 5/Tinker whatever capes?"
"Technically only one of them falls under PRT jurisdiction," Director Piggot noted. "Not that it matters much right now." She turned to the two girls. "However, the two of you will have to go through power testing, likely together to test your ability to communicate with one another and such as well."
"That will need to wait," Taylor said. "Until things have stabilized in a few days."
"For something of this magnitude we'll probably take at least a week to get things ready anyway. We might pull in staff from Boston or New York to help, even."
"With all of that," Miss Militia said. "What happened with Leet?"
"Er, his snark decided to play a lot nicer," Taylor said. "Not trying to kill him, letting him maintain and repair stuff, and giving him more flexibility."
"So it isn't likely to try and destroy the region again?" Director Piggot asked.
"No, we don't think so."
"Good. Moving on, we know that Panacea cannot use her powers on herself. Does that extend to both of you?"
"Neither of us can affect ourselves," Amy said. "But we can affect each other."
"Will you both get urges for the shared powers?" Jessica asked.
"The burden is shared," Taylor answered. "And apparently should remain at the levels from when the snarks were only connected to one of us, as that was something they were aiming for during the prep work. Further, the new tinker snarks ended up with an almost 'hands-off' approach, due to the state of Leet's snark when it was attacked."
"Well, unless there's anything else important we haven't been informed of?" Director Piggot said, pausing for an interruption. Getting none, she continued. "Right. Maul, you're off duty for a minimum of a week, and likely until we can get you power-tested again. Nothing short of an all-hands emergency is to get you back into costume once you've changed out of it today. A PRT van will take you and Panacea back to the PRT building to facilitate that changing after the two of you do a final check on Leet."
"After that we aren't sure where you're going," Danny said. "I'd personally suggest swinging by the Dallon household to pick up a few things for Amy, and then staying at our house for the night. You're less likely to be immediately pestered that way."
Taylor: What do you think?
Amy: Works for me. Less likely to be badgered by Vicky that way, at least.
Taylor: Heh, maybe we should get you some fingerless gloves.
Amy: Holy crap, I'll be able to hit Vicky when she's being stupid without her shield protecting her!
Taylor blinked as Amy's grin re-asserted itself. Ok. "Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. We'll figure out other details later. Maybe alternate nights?"
"I'll ensure that Amy is marked down as your guest for your trip," Director Piggot said. "I think we should play things safe with keeping the two of you close, and we'd rather not change those plans too much, to avoid awkward questions being asked."
"I expect that both of you will have new paperwork to sign as well," Colin said. "Though I'm not sure who will have more."
Both girls groaned at that.
Leet had been checked over, and a note left for him with details about what had changed with his powers. Then the two girls had ridden to the PRT building in a van, where Taylor had changed out of her costume and collected her shopping from earlier. The same van had then taken the two of them to the Dallon household, where Amy packed for a few days, just in case. With that done they were shuffled over to the Hebert household, where Danny hadn't made it home yet.
"So," Taylor said as she showed Amy the guest room. "I'm assuming we should wait for everything to stabilize before we try to hook up with Riley."
"I want a few things now, and none of them require Riley," Amy countered. "Chances are Shaper already knows what I'm talking about and how to do them, too."
<S: Agreement>
Taylor blinked. "Alright then, sit down at least."
Amy eagerly sat down on the bed and held her hand out for Taylor to take. Taylor did so, and reviewed what Shaper was showing her. Ten minutes later she was done, and Amy was bouncing in place.
"Now that we've done that," Taylor said, sitting down next to Amy. "Do you want to know any of the tricks I've figured out?"
"We should probably both share those," Amy admitted. "I've got a few I use on a regular basis myself, after all."
By the time Danny made it home with a pile of takeout the two had shared quite a few tricks.
"I definitely want some of these gloves," Amy said, poking in the PRT store on her phone after dinner. "If only for annoying Vicky. The fact that I could get away with actually using them in public without outing myself is merely a bonus."
"I'd recommend shoes with a good steel toe too," Taylor added.
"Half of my shoes already have that after a couple of minor injuries. Kinda wishing I had thought of gloves previously, though. Why did I never think to just put a pair on so I could interact with people without seeing their biology all the time?"
"Your snark wanted to be used. I think all parahumans have poor judgement when it comes to ways to not use their powers."
"You're probably right."
Their conversation was interrupted by Taylor's phone ringing. She grinned and pulled the phone out, putting it down on the table and turning on the speakerphone. "Hi Riley."
"Taylor!" Riley answered. "Why didn't you tell me you were awake?!"
"I sent you a text message, you didn't reply. Amy's here too, by the way. I have you on speaker."
"Hello," Amy said, shaking her head.
There was some obvious fumbling of the phone on the other end, and then Riley sighed. "I apparently didn't notice I flagged that as read. And hi Amy. So, what happened?"
"I'll send you a copy of the video report," Taylor said, grabbing her Maul phone to work at that. "But the important part to you is probably that we both have Amy's power now, so she's going to want upgrades."
"I'm not anxious enough for them to risk death," Amy added. "So we're waiting, at a minimum, until what happened stabilizes properly."
"Awesome!" Riley exclaimed. "Huh, I wonder if I'll come to you, or if this time you'll come to me?"
"No clue, but Taylor has a very fun idea for afterwards."
"Oh?"
There was a very good chance that a number of people had feelings of sudden dread as Taylor's plan was explained to Riley.
