- Location
- Russia
Well, her too. But I expect that she'd be too busy helping rebuild her Earth Bet to join in the fun.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Don't forget Clockblocker's "That's it, I'm out of this universe".
- Location
- Russia
He'd probably finally figure out how to freeze himself. His shard would help.
Chapter 69
Monday morning Taylor ended up sitting in the Dallons' kitchen poking around on her phone, attempting to figure out who else in town might know about the Slaughterhouse Nine. She'd gotten curious after being asked who was cleared the previous day, and needed something to distract herself from the temptation to wake Amy up after the other girl had once again woken Taylor up to tell her to go to the bathroom.
Apparently the SL9 clearance list she'd found only contained Protectorate, Wards, and direct PRT members. It also didn't contain Taylor or Dragon at this point, though Lisa was on there. That implied that whatever updated the page didn't consider SL10 to be a valid reason to list someone. It also didn't list her father or any of the Dallons, which seemed to imply that affiliates didn't count either. She also didn't see any of the Nine, nor Jessica on it. Which she thought was odd. Though she hadn't checked, Jessica might not have SL9.
There was no apparent search function for looking up who had a given security clearance, or at least there wasn't one she could find. So she decided that perhaps she could check individual records of those she knew had been clued in on the Nine, to see if there was anything of interest there. This quickly revealed why Jessica, who did show as having SL9, and presumably the Nine themselves weren't showing on the SL9 page. Those she checked were listed as affiliates themselves, which didn't seem to count.
Eventually sighing, she decided that she wasn't going to figure any of it out on her own, so she sent a message to Dragon asking her if the PRT offered any way for people to check that kind of thing. There had to be some way to, after all.
"Good morning Taylor," Mark said as he came into the kitchen. "Why are you up so early?"
"Amy woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep," Taylor replied, causing Mark to give her an odd look. Taylor sighed and continued. "She's having issues keeping my body and her body separate in her mind, so when I'm approaching a full bladder the back of her head insists that she has to use the bathroom instead."
"Ahh, yeah. I can see how that could be annoying. Hopefully she'll get it figured out soon enough. I don't suppose you like pancakes? Perhaps with strawberries?"
"That sounds good. Want any help?"
"Nah, I've got it."
Taylor shrugged, and then went back to her phone as it pinged her with a message. Huh, according to Dragon anyone with SL5 or better could install the advanced clearance checking app to look up various things. Or, of course, Dragon would be willing to do any such checks Taylor wanted to run. It was probably a good thing her original request implied that she might be asking for someone else, or that might have been the only answer.
She installed the app, and then started poking around in it while Mark prepared to make pancakes. The interface was trivial to figure out, and soon she had a list of those with SL9 in the entire system. Which was impressively small, all things considered, and according to the app half of them were therapists. A deeper check showed that only a quarter of the therapists had actual clearance to know about the Nine, so perhaps therapists ended up with SL9 as a matter of course?
"I don't suppose you can wake Vicky up?" Mark said. "I assume Amy would be trivial, of course, but the two should get moving."
"I can try," Taylor offered. She then flipped her striker switch back and forth a few times.
Amy: What the hell are you doing?
Taylor: Waking you up. Mark's making strawberry pancakes. Now I'm going to poke Vicky's snark, see if I can wake her up with it.
Taylor: Hello there!
[Query]
Taylor: I'm hoping you have a way of waking Vicky up without Amy or I going in to poke her.
[Confusion]
Taylor: Well, she has to get up and get ready for the day. Besides, breakfast is going to be ready soon.
[Query]
Amy: Oh yes, please do that.
Taylor blinked a couple of times as a couple of thuds came from upstairs. Apparently momentarily connecting Vicky's flying dream to her powers caused her to suddenly fly.
Amy: Wow. I think she slept through that. I'll wake her up.
"Apparently Vicky's a heavy sleeper," Taylor said as Mark looked at her. Taylor flinched for a moment as she suddenly saw Vicky's biology, then shook her head. "I wonder if she damaged anything during her momentary flight?"
"How did you accomplish that?" Mark asked.
"Her snark offered to momentarily connect her powers to her dream, and Amy told it to go for it. When it didn't work Amy volunteered to wake her up instead."
Mark just shook his head and went back to cooking. A couple minutes later Amy came down, followed shortly afterwards by Vicky. Taylor could tell Carol was moving around, but she hadn't come down yet.
"Morning," Vicky said, dropping into a chair, followed by a yawn.
"Morning," Taylor replied. "Sleep well?"
"Maybe? For some reason when Amy woke me up I was laying on the floor next to my closet door."
Vicky looked confused as everyone else in the room snickered. Mark recovered first and served Taylor the first stack of pancakes, causing the other two to pout.
"So what exactly happened over the weekend?" Dean asked as they pulled away from the Dallon residence. Amy and Taylor were in the backseat with Vicky up front. "Details have been a little on the slim side."
"We aren't fully certain of everything ourselves," Amy admitted. "And what we do know is mostly secret. Some of it for medical reasons."
"A side effect has Amy and I needing to stay somewhat near each other," Taylor added. "That's about all we can tell you for now."
"So is there anything else you can tell me?" Dean asked.
"Did you know that the Dallons have a gun safe in their guest room closet? I kept my sidearm in it last night."
"I...what?"
"It's where dad keeps his shotgun," Vicky answered. "Apparently he believes that every father with a little girl needs one."
For some reason Dean looked a little nervous at that.
School had been interesting, what with all the gossip about what had happened over the weekend. Most conversations centered around what had gone wrong with Leet's mech, but at least one person on PHO had noticed Amy entering the hospital on Friday, only to not actually be seen leaving. Then she appeared in public on Sunday, visiting the PRT building. Speculation was rampant about what had happened in the middle.
The only other significant gossip was that there would be seven students going to the 'thesis defense' event, four participants and their guests. And that was mainly because all seven, plus one younger sibling, would be traveling on a Dragon-provided craft. Apparently it was seen as a no-brainer to just drag all eight along instead of having a craft only carrying Taylor and Amy. That was being discussed with the two, in lieu of asking about the events of the weekend. Specifically, how they'd swung it.
"Dragon probably felt it was safer if Panacea wasn't going through the normal airports," was how Taylor was generally answering the overall question.
"How should I know, I'm just Taylor's guest," was Amy's general response.
The end result was a combination of 'of course Panacea would warrant it' and 'Jacob must be even more awesome than we thought'. Amy found the latter to be hilarious.
Taylor sat in the hospital waiting room, poking at her homework, doing her best to ignore the biology of the people Amy was healing. Shortly after they'd left school there'd been an accident where a drunk driver had plowed into the side of an elementary school.
Taylor: You healing the entire floor?
Amy: Yeah, why?
Taylor: Next room has a snark in it.
Amy: Oh. Thanks for the heads up.
Taylor moved onto the next portion of her assignment even as Amy worked on clearing the next room, leaving the parahuman for last. The initial 'hello' to the snark had been brief, but Taylor cringed when Amy touched them. On one hand, she now knew what the 'freshly triggered' brain damage looked like. On the other hand, the boy's rib cage was barely holding together and there was internal bleeding that probably hadn't been noticed, or else he would have been in one of the earlier rooms.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Greetings. Confusion]
Taylor: Yeah, there are two of us. I don't suppose you helped keep your human alive?
[Negation]
Taylor: Huh. Are you willing to tell us what you do for your human?
[Data. Elaboration]
Well, that sounded like it was a blessed with suck situation. The kid had been uninjured, but saw his twin sister dying and had triggered with the power to automatically take on part of lethal injuries of others around him. Never enough to be fatal to him, generally enough to make the lethal injuries non-lethal, but yeah. Then again, based on DNA his sister had been one of the first healed, and if her condition had been after his power kicked in?
Amy: I'm going to have to give him and his parents the pamphlets, but I think I'll push for them keeping this quiet.
Taylor: No argument from me. Might want to encourage the family to ensure that he has a way to call 911 pretty much all the time, though.
Amy: Yeah, I guess that would be a good idea.
An hour later Amy was done, parents had been talked to, and the two could leave.
"I really wish I had known about this app before," Amy said, poking at the advanced clearance checking app. "It would have let me know who I could have gone to for that file, amongst other things."
"It is amazingly useful," Taylor admitted as she closed up her gun safe, her sidearm safely inside. "But I think it's normally intended for use by high-level PRT staff and local Protectorate leaders, which is why it isn't quite advertised."
"I can see how that would be the case. So, what's with the gift box?"
Taylor blinked, and looked over at her desk. Oh, right, she still had that second locket. "It's a bigger on the inside picture locket. I sent one to Riley as a thank you of sorts. That's the spare I got in case Missy wanted to keep one, but she said she'd just upgrade the one she already had at home."
Amy picked the box up and looked inside, seeing the cheap locket. She frowned, then moved the picture holder pieces out of the way and found the expanded spaces. "This is pretty neat. I don't think I'd have any reason to use it, but it's neat. Who're you planning on giving it to?"
"No clue. I figured Riley could use a place to hide stuff, but that was about it."
"Maybe you should send it to someone who isn't expecting it? See how they react and all?"
"Hmmm. Maybe. But who'd be a good choice?"
"Maybe give it to Battery so she can troll others with it?"
Taylor thought about that, and shrugged. She didn't have any better ideas. Ten minutes later the box was properly labeled to be sent to Battery, though she'd wait to drop it off. It could sit on the desk until then.
Tuesday morning at school gossip was primarily spun off of a short-lived thread on PHO where someone had leaked some of the things going on behind the scenes at Medhall. Apparently there was a major investigation going on into a number of things after the fiasco with the quarantine lockdown. The biggest issue was that something that had gotten out hadn't been properly registered with the local PRT office. So even though the containment breach had been deemed to not be their fault they were still in hot water.
With that distracting everyone the observation that Leet took an extra couple of days to leave the hospital after Amy had healed him was all but overlooked. A few people were curious, but the issues Medhall was having were generally taking priority. Taylor and Amy were curious how Leet was doing, of course, but that was about as far as their interest went at this point.
Classes were standard for classes. That is, mostly boring with a few interesting points. Eventually, though, lunch rolled around, and different topics sprang up as people hit PHO. The first of which was that the 'cape trackers' were thinking that a new Protectorate blaster in Honolulu might be Purity. That had led to a number of other questions, such as where several other members of the E88 were. There was even speculation that the new Ward in Phoenix might be Rune, except for that she seemed to be flying without tinkertech or a platform to stand on so it didn't quite line up.
The other thing people were talking about was an apparent roaming group that had been noticed by chance when a demonstration of how to operate the anti-master tinkertech was performed. Nobody was sure who they were or where they were going, but they had evaded the PRT cordon. As such they were believed to either be parahumans or were working with parahumans.
"Lots of gossip today," Taylor said between bites of her burger.
"Yep," Dean said, stabbing a potato slice with his fork. "You'd almost think the Medhall revelation hadn't happened this morning."
"Maybe it's a plot," Amy said. "They're distracting everyone with a bunch of other things to get them to forget about the leak."
"So what's up with you two," Dennis asked, gesturing at Taylor and Amy. "Seems like you've been spending more time than usual together."
Taylor and Amy shared a look, and then grinned before turning back to Dennis and speaking in unison. "We've decided to try and get twinspeak down! How're we doing?"
Apparently they'd done a decent job, if the number of shocked looks directed at them was any indication. Finally Dennis shook his head. "I thought twins were supposed to finish each other's sentences, not speak in unison."
"Well of course..." Taylor started.
"...we can do that," Amy continued. "That was the..."
"...easy part. Synchronizing with each other..."
"...was the hard part. Do you know how..."
"...many variables there are?"
For some reason Vicky was the only other one that found that hilarious.
Amy: Wanna see a movie after school?
Taylor: That could work. There anything in particular you were hoping to see?
Amy: Maybe The Fire of the End 3? Something mindless.
Taylor: Huh. Sure, why not. I heard it's better than 2 was, anyway.
Taylor mused that planning after school activities while in class would generally be frowned upon. More so when the person you were planning with wasn't in the class with you. Then again, they both had quizzes today and were both done, waiting for the rest of their classes to finish, so it wasn't like they were skipping out on paying attention or anything. Still weird though.
Once their classes were done for the day they met out by the bus stop, Taylor poking at the news on her phone while Amy checked her messages.
"Apparently Toybox is challenging a few laws," Taylor said, getting the attention of Amy and a couple others. "In particular the federal one that says you have to reside on Earth Bet to vote."
"Why in the world do they want to fight that one?" one of the other students asked.
"Er, looks like they want pocket dimensions that only open up onto Earth Bet to count as residing on Earth Bet? They aren't all that clear in the article, but I think that's what the quote is saying. Just with almost all technical terminology."
"Better than the group down in New Orleans that wanted to have the law repealed that requires medical exams for 'revived' humans before they can vote," Amy said, shrugging. "Powers created a lot of headaches for things like that."
"How in the world did you figure that out?" another student asked. "I mean, seriously, that quote's a wall of technobabble to me?"
Taylor blinked. "What? It seemed somewhat clear to me. I mean, I don't understand all of it but I got the general gist from a few pieces. Self-contained folds embedded in the quantum strings would be the pocket dimension, and a little further it specifically notes that the entrances are fixed to Earth Bet on both the temporal and dimensional axes even if they're otherwise mobile. Really, I'd expect the biggest challenge to be determining what district their pocket counts as living in."
"I'm with Taylor here," Amy said a minute later, having pulled the article up herself. "If you take the time to read through it you can spot the important bits. I think most of it is to ensure that they covered the technicalities in an unambiguous manner."
The other students stared at the two, then went back to poking at their phones. Both the news article's comments and the PHO thread would have this 'clarification' from the two girls posted about, as well as Taylor's comment about what district a pocket dimension actually exists in.
By the time Taylor and Amy got off of the bus near the movie theater several tinkers had chimed in on the PHO thread with a 'well, duh, what did you all think it said?'.
"I have to admit that 3 wasn't as bad as 2 was," Amy said as they exited the theater a couple hours later. "Still not as good as the original, though."
"Which probably means that they'll make a fourth one," Taylor said. "Wanna bet that one sucks?"
"They might pull off a miracle. But they killed off half the supporting characters this time, so they'd have to do a good job with whoever replaces them."
"At least this one wasn't as talky?"
"There's that, yes."
The two continued to discuss the movie as they walked down the street, not actually sure what they wanted to do now.
Taylor: Heads up, incoming snark behind us.
Amy: Anyone we know?
Taylor: It's just Battery.
Amy: Oh, is that why everyone's gaping?
"Well hello girls," Battery said from right behind them. Both turned to see her frowning. "You're supposed to jump when someone sneaks up behind you and says hello, you know."
"Why would we do that?" Amy asked. "I mean, your approach wasn't the most subtle. Not with all the bystanders staring."
"Doesn't help if you're quiet when everyone else gives you away," Taylor added.
"Knew I should have waited until you two were out of public," Battery said, shaking her head. "Still, I'd like a few minutes of Panacea's time, but I don't mind if Miss Hebert joins us. How about I treat you two to a snack while we take advantage of some privacy booths?"
Taylor and Amy looked at each other and shrugged, then Amy turned back to Battery. "Sure, why not."
Five minutes later the three had a snack and a drink each and were settling into their chosen booth. Battery activated the tinktertech privacy device built into the booth, and then sighed.
"Sorry about the deception," Battery started. "But I figured it would be a lot less interesting to the public if I wanted to talk to Panacea. Taylor, how did you get that locket delivered?"
Taylor paused. "I could have sworn that I left that on my desk at home this morning."
"It was in my underwear drawer when I got up around ten."
"I blame the box-moving snark."
"Ok," Battery said, her body language not looking convinced. She then pulled the locket out of a small compartment on her glove. "In that case, why the hell did you give me a cheap locket?"
"That's easy," Amy said, grinning. "Check behind the picture holders."
Battery looked less convinced, but popped the locket open anyway. A moment later she'd switched to stunned as she moved her finger around inside the expanded space. "How in the world?"
"Vista does good work," Taylor said, grinning. "But Amy and I thought you might be willing to troll people when discussing what I should do with the extra locket."
"I can admit that this would be a pretty good hiding place. And until people know what's been done to it they wouldn't suspect a thing, would they? This is actually pretty incredible. Thank you."
"Maybe you can troll Assault with how it showed up too," Amy offered, only to get a look. "What? It was, as you said, delivered to your underwear drawer."
Battery snickered at that, even as she carefully put the locket back into her glove.
"You two should go play in the greenhouse for a bit," Carol said after Taylor and Amy arrived back at the Dallon's. "You'll be out of town until the weekend, and probably won't be doing much healing either, so you should see about getting things out of your system tonight. I'll send Victoria out to get you when dinner's ready."
"Works for me," Amy said, dropping her bag by the stairs. "And makes sense, for that matter."
"Better to get annoying urges out of our systems and all," Taylor agreed.
A few minutes later they were poking at the various plants, with Amy scowling over the latest seed-grown rose bushes. "For some reason they don't want to flower when I grow them from seeds, or if they do flower the roots die off aftwareds. The tulips work fine, but the stupid rose bushes don't."
Taylor poked a couple of the tulips, looking at them and the bushes Amy was poking at. "Maybe you're approaching this the wrong way. The seeds may not be able to to hold everything?"
"It's just frustrating. I've been told there's a market for 'grow your own' on the rose bushes, but I can't get them to work."
Taylor moved over and grabbed a couple of tulip bulbs, then poked one of the power-grown rose bushes. She compared the two, and then grinned. A moment later the insides of the bulbs changed.
"Oh wow," Amy said, staring off into space. "I never even considered that. Single-use rose bush bulbs instead of seeds, which means you can actually encode the differences in each area into the bulb itself."
"You did that with the tulips already," Taylor said. "I just adapted it to the rose bushes."
"I was too focused on seeds, I think. The bulb idea makes a lot more sense. Even better, it can consume the bulb as it grows, making them easier to get started. Less likely that people will be pissed that the seeds didn't sprout and all. Let's make a dozen or so and plant them, see how they do. If they work I might have to share some of the profits with you."
"I've somewhat recently had to put things directly towards stock and community improvements because I was making too much money, and my last income report from the PRT indicated that I'm still getting payouts from the anti-master stuff."
"Oh. And you still have some of that crap in your wardrobe? I'm going to have to get Carol to let Vicky join us on a much larger shopping trip, aren't I? I bet Lisa would join us in a heartbeat too."
"I like the way I dress, thank you very much."
"You can at least get better versions of your preferred clothes. Like ones you haven't repaired multiple times."
Taylor grumbled even as she helped Amy make and plant the rose bush bulbs. Maybe if she could find enough reasons to put such a trip off she could get out of it?
Wednesday at school there was a surprise waiting for those going on the thesis trip. A pile of individually-labeled 'PRT-issue' suitcases, one for each of those going, had been provided. Taylor's, however, appeared to be her existing suitcase fetched from the PRT building. Each of them had been instructed to head home after school with the suitcase, pack everything up in them, and then make their way to the PRT building.
The reasoning for this was that Dragon's transport had slots specifically designed for these suitcases, so it was better that everyone had them for that reason alone. Everyone would be permitted to keep their suitcase as a 'souvenir' afterwards, which made everyone happy with the situation. That it allowed for Taylor to have all of her stuff available without it being obvious was the likely intended benefit.
Amy: I'm going to need to talk to Missy, see if I can get her to expand my new suitcase. A few times not having the standard size bag has caused issues on sudden trips.
Taylor: Got anything in mind for payment?
Amy: Repayment for all the times I already healed her, including not mentioning the times she obviously did things herself?
Taylor: Ok, I could see that working. Get a utility belt and ask for it to be enhanced at the same time?
Amy: Not a bad idea. I'll think about it, though I imagine it would all be better if I could get my upgrades first too. Then I'd know how much I could handle.
Other than the gossip surrounding the suitcases things were fairly boring during the morning. By lunchtime people had decided to move onto other things, like pestering those going for pictures from inside whatever it was that was transporting them.
"Why won't you take pictures for us?" Dennis asked, pointing at Taylor and Amy. "I'd take pictures for you!"
"I'm sure others will be willing to take pictures," Taylor countered. "You can look at theirs."
"You two aren't any fun."
Taylor stuck her tongue out at Dennis before going back to poking at her messages. It looked like she was being asked to stow her sidearm in her suitcase before making it up to the roof of the PRT building. It was something to do with normal rules requiring non-employees to disarm on the premises. She was also supposed to try and arrive when others attending weren't, so that she could head down and pack up anything she needed from her room in the Wards area.
More importantly, her father had volunteered to pick her and Amy up, bring them home, then bring them to the Dallon's, and then to the PRT building. Which was nice. Apparently he'd checked with Carol and Mark beforehand, even. She popped him a message saying that they'd have two suitcases with them as well.
Amy: Did you see the interview request from channel seven yet?
Taylor: The what? Oh, there it is. I hadn't gotten that far in my messages. What the hell?
Amy: These happen every so often. Want me to send you my form letter for rejecting the request? You'll need to adjust it for your own use, of course.
Taylor: Yes please.
Well, that was weird. Looking over that message Taylor found that apparently they wanted to interview the two who had 'demystified' Toybox's legal challenge. Why couldn't they have just asked the PRT to explain it in terms a non-tinker might be able to understand?
Taylor had adjusted Amy's form letter in the car after school and sent it off. The general gist of it was that she wasn't accepting interviews at all, not wishing to be in the public eye any more than necessary. Obviously Taylor had to adjust the parts talking about healing and such, she replaced those with a spiel about 'focusing on preparing for the future' instead.
Once home Amy helped Taylor pack for a few days, with Taylor stowing her sidearm in the suitcase so she didn't forget. That only took a few minutes, then the two headed back out to the car for the ride over to the Dallon's. There Taylor helped Amy pack for a few days, including showing her some useful features of the suitcase.
Before they left the Dallon's they did a quick check of the greenhouse, then hopped back into the car for the trip to the PRT building.
"Have fun you two," Danny said as they got out of the car.
"I'll do my best," Taylor said, grinning.
"I think I'll just see what kind of horrors she inflicts on people," Amy added. "Since I suspect that will probably be more amusing than finding something to do to people myself."
"Bye," Taylor said, hugging her father through the window.
"Bye," Danny said, then drove off as Taylor and Amy entered the PRT building.
"Hello Miss Dallon, Miss Hebert," the receptionist said as they approached the desk. "Here are your passes, you'll be departing for the Rig from the roof today. There you'll transfer over to Dragon's transport."
"Thank you," the two chorused as they took their passes. They were then brought to the elevator, which the passes opened. Taylor grinned as the door closed, using her phone to send the elevator down instead of up.
"That's a neat trick," Amy admitted. "I didn't realize this elevator went below the lobby, I normally get showed to one further back or end up taking the stairs when I visit the lower areas."
"I think it's a great way to stealthily slip into the lower area," Taylor said. "After all, supposedly the pass only lets us get to the roof, right?"
Ten minutes later Taylor had stowed enough stuff from her room to serve in case of an emergency, and the two made their way back to the elevator. It was still sitting there, so nobody else had likely used it. A quick trip up to the roof and they found several short-hop transports sitting there waiting. They were directed to one of them, which took off with the two just after they got on.
A few minutes later they'd landed on the Rig, and were directed over to a large transport sitting there. They were shown aboard and given instructions on how to slot their suitcases into storage slots, before being given a short tour. It was basically a larger version of the transports Taylor had already been on, but without the changing or sleeping areas.
It took nearly half an hour before anyone else showed up, at which point Amy had to remind Taylor to stop operating her stuff with her brain.
Apparently the SL9 clearance list she'd found only contained Protectorate, Wards, and direct PRT members. It also didn't contain Taylor or Dragon at this point, though Lisa was on there. That implied that whatever updated the page didn't consider SL10 to be a valid reason to list someone. It also didn't list her father or any of the Dallons, which seemed to imply that affiliates didn't count either. She also didn't see any of the Nine, nor Jessica on it. Which she thought was odd. Though she hadn't checked, Jessica might not have SL9.
There was no apparent search function for looking up who had a given security clearance, or at least there wasn't one she could find. So she decided that perhaps she could check individual records of those she knew had been clued in on the Nine, to see if there was anything of interest there. This quickly revealed why Jessica, who did show as having SL9, and presumably the Nine themselves weren't showing on the SL9 page. Those she checked were listed as affiliates themselves, which didn't seem to count.
Eventually sighing, she decided that she wasn't going to figure any of it out on her own, so she sent a message to Dragon asking her if the PRT offered any way for people to check that kind of thing. There had to be some way to, after all.
"Good morning Taylor," Mark said as he came into the kitchen. "Why are you up so early?"
"Amy woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep," Taylor replied, causing Mark to give her an odd look. Taylor sighed and continued. "She's having issues keeping my body and her body separate in her mind, so when I'm approaching a full bladder the back of her head insists that she has to use the bathroom instead."
"Ahh, yeah. I can see how that could be annoying. Hopefully she'll get it figured out soon enough. I don't suppose you like pancakes? Perhaps with strawberries?"
"That sounds good. Want any help?"
"Nah, I've got it."
Taylor shrugged, and then went back to her phone as it pinged her with a message. Huh, according to Dragon anyone with SL5 or better could install the advanced clearance checking app to look up various things. Or, of course, Dragon would be willing to do any such checks Taylor wanted to run. It was probably a good thing her original request implied that she might be asking for someone else, or that might have been the only answer.
She installed the app, and then started poking around in it while Mark prepared to make pancakes. The interface was trivial to figure out, and soon she had a list of those with SL9 in the entire system. Which was impressively small, all things considered, and according to the app half of them were therapists. A deeper check showed that only a quarter of the therapists had actual clearance to know about the Nine, so perhaps therapists ended up with SL9 as a matter of course?
"I don't suppose you can wake Vicky up?" Mark said. "I assume Amy would be trivial, of course, but the two should get moving."
"I can try," Taylor offered. She then flipped her striker switch back and forth a few times.
Amy: What the hell are you doing?
Taylor: Waking you up. Mark's making strawberry pancakes. Now I'm going to poke Vicky's snark, see if I can wake her up with it.
Taylor: Hello there!
[Query]
Taylor: I'm hoping you have a way of waking Vicky up without Amy or I going in to poke her.
[Confusion]
Taylor: Well, she has to get up and get ready for the day. Besides, breakfast is going to be ready soon.
[Query]
Amy: Oh yes, please do that.
Taylor blinked a couple of times as a couple of thuds came from upstairs. Apparently momentarily connecting Vicky's flying dream to her powers caused her to suddenly fly.
Amy: Wow. I think she slept through that. I'll wake her up.
"Apparently Vicky's a heavy sleeper," Taylor said as Mark looked at her. Taylor flinched for a moment as she suddenly saw Vicky's biology, then shook her head. "I wonder if she damaged anything during her momentary flight?"
"How did you accomplish that?" Mark asked.
"Her snark offered to momentarily connect her powers to her dream, and Amy told it to go for it. When it didn't work Amy volunteered to wake her up instead."
Mark just shook his head and went back to cooking. A couple minutes later Amy came down, followed shortly afterwards by Vicky. Taylor could tell Carol was moving around, but she hadn't come down yet.
"Morning," Vicky said, dropping into a chair, followed by a yawn.
"Morning," Taylor replied. "Sleep well?"
"Maybe? For some reason when Amy woke me up I was laying on the floor next to my closet door."
Vicky looked confused as everyone else in the room snickered. Mark recovered first and served Taylor the first stack of pancakes, causing the other two to pout.
"So what exactly happened over the weekend?" Dean asked as they pulled away from the Dallon residence. Amy and Taylor were in the backseat with Vicky up front. "Details have been a little on the slim side."
"We aren't fully certain of everything ourselves," Amy admitted. "And what we do know is mostly secret. Some of it for medical reasons."
"A side effect has Amy and I needing to stay somewhat near each other," Taylor added. "That's about all we can tell you for now."
"So is there anything else you can tell me?" Dean asked.
"Did you know that the Dallons have a gun safe in their guest room closet? I kept my sidearm in it last night."
"I...what?"
"It's where dad keeps his shotgun," Vicky answered. "Apparently he believes that every father with a little girl needs one."
For some reason Dean looked a little nervous at that.
School had been interesting, what with all the gossip about what had happened over the weekend. Most conversations centered around what had gone wrong with Leet's mech, but at least one person on PHO had noticed Amy entering the hospital on Friday, only to not actually be seen leaving. Then she appeared in public on Sunday, visiting the PRT building. Speculation was rampant about what had happened in the middle.
The only other significant gossip was that there would be seven students going to the 'thesis defense' event, four participants and their guests. And that was mainly because all seven, plus one younger sibling, would be traveling on a Dragon-provided craft. Apparently it was seen as a no-brainer to just drag all eight along instead of having a craft only carrying Taylor and Amy. That was being discussed with the two, in lieu of asking about the events of the weekend. Specifically, how they'd swung it.
"Dragon probably felt it was safer if Panacea wasn't going through the normal airports," was how Taylor was generally answering the overall question.
"How should I know, I'm just Taylor's guest," was Amy's general response.
The end result was a combination of 'of course Panacea would warrant it' and 'Jacob must be even more awesome than we thought'. Amy found the latter to be hilarious.
Taylor sat in the hospital waiting room, poking at her homework, doing her best to ignore the biology of the people Amy was healing. Shortly after they'd left school there'd been an accident where a drunk driver had plowed into the side of an elementary school.
Taylor: You healing the entire floor?
Amy: Yeah, why?
Taylor: Next room has a snark in it.
Amy: Oh. Thanks for the heads up.
Taylor moved onto the next portion of her assignment even as Amy worked on clearing the next room, leaving the parahuman for last. The initial 'hello' to the snark had been brief, but Taylor cringed when Amy touched them. On one hand, she now knew what the 'freshly triggered' brain damage looked like. On the other hand, the boy's rib cage was barely holding together and there was internal bleeding that probably hadn't been noticed, or else he would have been in one of the earlier rooms.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Greetings. Confusion]
Taylor: Yeah, there are two of us. I don't suppose you helped keep your human alive?
[Negation]
Taylor: Huh. Are you willing to tell us what you do for your human?
[Data. Elaboration]
Well, that sounded like it was a blessed with suck situation. The kid had been uninjured, but saw his twin sister dying and had triggered with the power to automatically take on part of lethal injuries of others around him. Never enough to be fatal to him, generally enough to make the lethal injuries non-lethal, but yeah. Then again, based on DNA his sister had been one of the first healed, and if her condition had been after his power kicked in?
Amy: I'm going to have to give him and his parents the pamphlets, but I think I'll push for them keeping this quiet.
Taylor: No argument from me. Might want to encourage the family to ensure that he has a way to call 911 pretty much all the time, though.
Amy: Yeah, I guess that would be a good idea.
An hour later Amy was done, parents had been talked to, and the two could leave.
"I really wish I had known about this app before," Amy said, poking at the advanced clearance checking app. "It would have let me know who I could have gone to for that file, amongst other things."
"It is amazingly useful," Taylor admitted as she closed up her gun safe, her sidearm safely inside. "But I think it's normally intended for use by high-level PRT staff and local Protectorate leaders, which is why it isn't quite advertised."
"I can see how that would be the case. So, what's with the gift box?"
Taylor blinked, and looked over at her desk. Oh, right, she still had that second locket. "It's a bigger on the inside picture locket. I sent one to Riley as a thank you of sorts. That's the spare I got in case Missy wanted to keep one, but she said she'd just upgrade the one she already had at home."
Amy picked the box up and looked inside, seeing the cheap locket. She frowned, then moved the picture holder pieces out of the way and found the expanded spaces. "This is pretty neat. I don't think I'd have any reason to use it, but it's neat. Who're you planning on giving it to?"
"No clue. I figured Riley could use a place to hide stuff, but that was about it."
"Maybe you should send it to someone who isn't expecting it? See how they react and all?"
"Hmmm. Maybe. But who'd be a good choice?"
"Maybe give it to Battery so she can troll others with it?"
Taylor thought about that, and shrugged. She didn't have any better ideas. Ten minutes later the box was properly labeled to be sent to Battery, though she'd wait to drop it off. It could sit on the desk until then.
Tuesday morning at school gossip was primarily spun off of a short-lived thread on PHO where someone had leaked some of the things going on behind the scenes at Medhall. Apparently there was a major investigation going on into a number of things after the fiasco with the quarantine lockdown. The biggest issue was that something that had gotten out hadn't been properly registered with the local PRT office. So even though the containment breach had been deemed to not be their fault they were still in hot water.
With that distracting everyone the observation that Leet took an extra couple of days to leave the hospital after Amy had healed him was all but overlooked. A few people were curious, but the issues Medhall was having were generally taking priority. Taylor and Amy were curious how Leet was doing, of course, but that was about as far as their interest went at this point.
Classes were standard for classes. That is, mostly boring with a few interesting points. Eventually, though, lunch rolled around, and different topics sprang up as people hit PHO. The first of which was that the 'cape trackers' were thinking that a new Protectorate blaster in Honolulu might be Purity. That had led to a number of other questions, such as where several other members of the E88 were. There was even speculation that the new Ward in Phoenix might be Rune, except for that she seemed to be flying without tinkertech or a platform to stand on so it didn't quite line up.
The other thing people were talking about was an apparent roaming group that had been noticed by chance when a demonstration of how to operate the anti-master tinkertech was performed. Nobody was sure who they were or where they were going, but they had evaded the PRT cordon. As such they were believed to either be parahumans or were working with parahumans.
"Lots of gossip today," Taylor said between bites of her burger.
"Yep," Dean said, stabbing a potato slice with his fork. "You'd almost think the Medhall revelation hadn't happened this morning."
"Maybe it's a plot," Amy said. "They're distracting everyone with a bunch of other things to get them to forget about the leak."
"So what's up with you two," Dennis asked, gesturing at Taylor and Amy. "Seems like you've been spending more time than usual together."
Taylor and Amy shared a look, and then grinned before turning back to Dennis and speaking in unison. "We've decided to try and get twinspeak down! How're we doing?"
Apparently they'd done a decent job, if the number of shocked looks directed at them was any indication. Finally Dennis shook his head. "I thought twins were supposed to finish each other's sentences, not speak in unison."
"Well of course..." Taylor started.
"...we can do that," Amy continued. "That was the..."
"...easy part. Synchronizing with each other..."
"...was the hard part. Do you know how..."
"...many variables there are?"
For some reason Vicky was the only other one that found that hilarious.
Amy: Wanna see a movie after school?
Taylor: That could work. There anything in particular you were hoping to see?
Amy: Maybe The Fire of the End 3? Something mindless.
Taylor: Huh. Sure, why not. I heard it's better than 2 was, anyway.
Taylor mused that planning after school activities while in class would generally be frowned upon. More so when the person you were planning with wasn't in the class with you. Then again, they both had quizzes today and were both done, waiting for the rest of their classes to finish, so it wasn't like they were skipping out on paying attention or anything. Still weird though.
Once their classes were done for the day they met out by the bus stop, Taylor poking at the news on her phone while Amy checked her messages.
"Apparently Toybox is challenging a few laws," Taylor said, getting the attention of Amy and a couple others. "In particular the federal one that says you have to reside on Earth Bet to vote."
"Why in the world do they want to fight that one?" one of the other students asked.
"Er, looks like they want pocket dimensions that only open up onto Earth Bet to count as residing on Earth Bet? They aren't all that clear in the article, but I think that's what the quote is saying. Just with almost all technical terminology."
"Better than the group down in New Orleans that wanted to have the law repealed that requires medical exams for 'revived' humans before they can vote," Amy said, shrugging. "Powers created a lot of headaches for things like that."
"How in the world did you figure that out?" another student asked. "I mean, seriously, that quote's a wall of technobabble to me?"
Taylor blinked. "What? It seemed somewhat clear to me. I mean, I don't understand all of it but I got the general gist from a few pieces. Self-contained folds embedded in the quantum strings would be the pocket dimension, and a little further it specifically notes that the entrances are fixed to Earth Bet on both the temporal and dimensional axes even if they're otherwise mobile. Really, I'd expect the biggest challenge to be determining what district their pocket counts as living in."
"I'm with Taylor here," Amy said a minute later, having pulled the article up herself. "If you take the time to read through it you can spot the important bits. I think most of it is to ensure that they covered the technicalities in an unambiguous manner."
The other students stared at the two, then went back to poking at their phones. Both the news article's comments and the PHO thread would have this 'clarification' from the two girls posted about, as well as Taylor's comment about what district a pocket dimension actually exists in.
By the time Taylor and Amy got off of the bus near the movie theater several tinkers had chimed in on the PHO thread with a 'well, duh, what did you all think it said?'.
"I have to admit that 3 wasn't as bad as 2 was," Amy said as they exited the theater a couple hours later. "Still not as good as the original, though."
"Which probably means that they'll make a fourth one," Taylor said. "Wanna bet that one sucks?"
"They might pull off a miracle. But they killed off half the supporting characters this time, so they'd have to do a good job with whoever replaces them."
"At least this one wasn't as talky?"
"There's that, yes."
The two continued to discuss the movie as they walked down the street, not actually sure what they wanted to do now.
Taylor: Heads up, incoming snark behind us.
Amy: Anyone we know?
Taylor: It's just Battery.
Amy: Oh, is that why everyone's gaping?
"Well hello girls," Battery said from right behind them. Both turned to see her frowning. "You're supposed to jump when someone sneaks up behind you and says hello, you know."
"Why would we do that?" Amy asked. "I mean, your approach wasn't the most subtle. Not with all the bystanders staring."
"Doesn't help if you're quiet when everyone else gives you away," Taylor added.
"Knew I should have waited until you two were out of public," Battery said, shaking her head. "Still, I'd like a few minutes of Panacea's time, but I don't mind if Miss Hebert joins us. How about I treat you two to a snack while we take advantage of some privacy booths?"
Taylor and Amy looked at each other and shrugged, then Amy turned back to Battery. "Sure, why not."
Five minutes later the three had a snack and a drink each and were settling into their chosen booth. Battery activated the tinktertech privacy device built into the booth, and then sighed.
"Sorry about the deception," Battery started. "But I figured it would be a lot less interesting to the public if I wanted to talk to Panacea. Taylor, how did you get that locket delivered?"
Taylor paused. "I could have sworn that I left that on my desk at home this morning."
"It was in my underwear drawer when I got up around ten."
"I blame the box-moving snark."
"Ok," Battery said, her body language not looking convinced. She then pulled the locket out of a small compartment on her glove. "In that case, why the hell did you give me a cheap locket?"
"That's easy," Amy said, grinning. "Check behind the picture holders."
Battery looked less convinced, but popped the locket open anyway. A moment later she'd switched to stunned as she moved her finger around inside the expanded space. "How in the world?"
"Vista does good work," Taylor said, grinning. "But Amy and I thought you might be willing to troll people when discussing what I should do with the extra locket."
"I can admit that this would be a pretty good hiding place. And until people know what's been done to it they wouldn't suspect a thing, would they? This is actually pretty incredible. Thank you."
"Maybe you can troll Assault with how it showed up too," Amy offered, only to get a look. "What? It was, as you said, delivered to your underwear drawer."
Battery snickered at that, even as she carefully put the locket back into her glove.
"You two should go play in the greenhouse for a bit," Carol said after Taylor and Amy arrived back at the Dallon's. "You'll be out of town until the weekend, and probably won't be doing much healing either, so you should see about getting things out of your system tonight. I'll send Victoria out to get you when dinner's ready."
"Works for me," Amy said, dropping her bag by the stairs. "And makes sense, for that matter."
"Better to get annoying urges out of our systems and all," Taylor agreed.
A few minutes later they were poking at the various plants, with Amy scowling over the latest seed-grown rose bushes. "For some reason they don't want to flower when I grow them from seeds, or if they do flower the roots die off aftwareds. The tulips work fine, but the stupid rose bushes don't."
Taylor poked a couple of the tulips, looking at them and the bushes Amy was poking at. "Maybe you're approaching this the wrong way. The seeds may not be able to to hold everything?"
"It's just frustrating. I've been told there's a market for 'grow your own' on the rose bushes, but I can't get them to work."
Taylor moved over and grabbed a couple of tulip bulbs, then poked one of the power-grown rose bushes. She compared the two, and then grinned. A moment later the insides of the bulbs changed.
"Oh wow," Amy said, staring off into space. "I never even considered that. Single-use rose bush bulbs instead of seeds, which means you can actually encode the differences in each area into the bulb itself."
"You did that with the tulips already," Taylor said. "I just adapted it to the rose bushes."
"I was too focused on seeds, I think. The bulb idea makes a lot more sense. Even better, it can consume the bulb as it grows, making them easier to get started. Less likely that people will be pissed that the seeds didn't sprout and all. Let's make a dozen or so and plant them, see how they do. If they work I might have to share some of the profits with you."
"I've somewhat recently had to put things directly towards stock and community improvements because I was making too much money, and my last income report from the PRT indicated that I'm still getting payouts from the anti-master stuff."
"Oh. And you still have some of that crap in your wardrobe? I'm going to have to get Carol to let Vicky join us on a much larger shopping trip, aren't I? I bet Lisa would join us in a heartbeat too."
"I like the way I dress, thank you very much."
"You can at least get better versions of your preferred clothes. Like ones you haven't repaired multiple times."
Taylor grumbled even as she helped Amy make and plant the rose bush bulbs. Maybe if she could find enough reasons to put such a trip off she could get out of it?
Wednesday at school there was a surprise waiting for those going on the thesis trip. A pile of individually-labeled 'PRT-issue' suitcases, one for each of those going, had been provided. Taylor's, however, appeared to be her existing suitcase fetched from the PRT building. Each of them had been instructed to head home after school with the suitcase, pack everything up in them, and then make their way to the PRT building.
The reasoning for this was that Dragon's transport had slots specifically designed for these suitcases, so it was better that everyone had them for that reason alone. Everyone would be permitted to keep their suitcase as a 'souvenir' afterwards, which made everyone happy with the situation. That it allowed for Taylor to have all of her stuff available without it being obvious was the likely intended benefit.
Amy: I'm going to need to talk to Missy, see if I can get her to expand my new suitcase. A few times not having the standard size bag has caused issues on sudden trips.
Taylor: Got anything in mind for payment?
Amy: Repayment for all the times I already healed her, including not mentioning the times she obviously did things herself?
Taylor: Ok, I could see that working. Get a utility belt and ask for it to be enhanced at the same time?
Amy: Not a bad idea. I'll think about it, though I imagine it would all be better if I could get my upgrades first too. Then I'd know how much I could handle.
Other than the gossip surrounding the suitcases things were fairly boring during the morning. By lunchtime people had decided to move onto other things, like pestering those going for pictures from inside whatever it was that was transporting them.
"Why won't you take pictures for us?" Dennis asked, pointing at Taylor and Amy. "I'd take pictures for you!"
"I'm sure others will be willing to take pictures," Taylor countered. "You can look at theirs."
"You two aren't any fun."
Taylor stuck her tongue out at Dennis before going back to poking at her messages. It looked like she was being asked to stow her sidearm in her suitcase before making it up to the roof of the PRT building. It was something to do with normal rules requiring non-employees to disarm on the premises. She was also supposed to try and arrive when others attending weren't, so that she could head down and pack up anything she needed from her room in the Wards area.
More importantly, her father had volunteered to pick her and Amy up, bring them home, then bring them to the Dallon's, and then to the PRT building. Which was nice. Apparently he'd checked with Carol and Mark beforehand, even. She popped him a message saying that they'd have two suitcases with them as well.
Amy: Did you see the interview request from channel seven yet?
Taylor: The what? Oh, there it is. I hadn't gotten that far in my messages. What the hell?
Amy: These happen every so often. Want me to send you my form letter for rejecting the request? You'll need to adjust it for your own use, of course.
Taylor: Yes please.
Well, that was weird. Looking over that message Taylor found that apparently they wanted to interview the two who had 'demystified' Toybox's legal challenge. Why couldn't they have just asked the PRT to explain it in terms a non-tinker might be able to understand?
Taylor had adjusted Amy's form letter in the car after school and sent it off. The general gist of it was that she wasn't accepting interviews at all, not wishing to be in the public eye any more than necessary. Obviously Taylor had to adjust the parts talking about healing and such, she replaced those with a spiel about 'focusing on preparing for the future' instead.
Once home Amy helped Taylor pack for a few days, with Taylor stowing her sidearm in the suitcase so she didn't forget. That only took a few minutes, then the two headed back out to the car for the ride over to the Dallon's. There Taylor helped Amy pack for a few days, including showing her some useful features of the suitcase.
Before they left the Dallon's they did a quick check of the greenhouse, then hopped back into the car for the trip to the PRT building.
"Have fun you two," Danny said as they got out of the car.
"I'll do my best," Taylor said, grinning.
"I think I'll just see what kind of horrors she inflicts on people," Amy added. "Since I suspect that will probably be more amusing than finding something to do to people myself."
"Bye," Taylor said, hugging her father through the window.
"Bye," Danny said, then drove off as Taylor and Amy entered the PRT building.
"Hello Miss Dallon, Miss Hebert," the receptionist said as they approached the desk. "Here are your passes, you'll be departing for the Rig from the roof today. There you'll transfer over to Dragon's transport."
"Thank you," the two chorused as they took their passes. They were then brought to the elevator, which the passes opened. Taylor grinned as the door closed, using her phone to send the elevator down instead of up.
"That's a neat trick," Amy admitted. "I didn't realize this elevator went below the lobby, I normally get showed to one further back or end up taking the stairs when I visit the lower areas."
"I think it's a great way to stealthily slip into the lower area," Taylor said. "After all, supposedly the pass only lets us get to the roof, right?"
Ten minutes later Taylor had stowed enough stuff from her room to serve in case of an emergency, and the two made their way back to the elevator. It was still sitting there, so nobody else had likely used it. A quick trip up to the roof and they found several short-hop transports sitting there waiting. They were directed to one of them, which took off with the two just after they got on.
A few minutes later they'd landed on the Rig, and were directed over to a large transport sitting there. They were shown aboard and given instructions on how to slot their suitcases into storage slots, before being given a short tour. It was basically a larger version of the transports Taylor had already been on, but without the changing or sleeping areas.
It took nearly half an hour before anyone else showed up, at which point Amy had to remind Taylor to stop operating her stuff with her brain.
Troy Guffey
Irresponsible Parasite
- Location
- Western Missouri, USA
Sure it was an anime? See the Doctor Who episode "Logopolis".
It's Nanoha. MGLN magic is pure math. Or maybe it's Gunbuster/Diebuster. That anime mathed a few black holes into existence in its day.
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Doctor Who did it first.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
It's so nice to see Taylor and Amy just hanging out and being happy, especially with how much of a shlep it is to get them to that point.
As for reality-warping math, don't forget The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The Heart of Gold was the fastest thing in space until Slartibartfast's ship Bistromath unseated it, and without having to muck about with dodgy things like high-level improbability.
As for reality-warping math, don't forget The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The Heart of Gold was the fastest thing in space until Slartibartfast's ship Bistromath unseated it, and without having to muck about with dodgy things like high-level improbability.
Troy Guffey
Irresponsible Parasite
- Location
- Western Missouri, USA
That was a WEIRD regeneration!
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Wonder if Taylor is going to have an assist on delivery?
Yep, thought that might happen. Question is, was this Doormaker and Clairvoyant trolling her, or did Ziz Jack in on the gestalt for a little trolling delivery of her own? After all, her ability to manipulate brains means that if she turns up the gain on her powers, she should be able to feed Doormaker target data the same as Clairvoyant, so she can hijack the system if she feels like it.
- Location
- Earth's general area
I was thinking it was just Velocity getting a heads up from a PRT precog.
Ursine
Concerned Citizen
- Location
- Home, Sweet Home
Nope, it's Scion. He can't tell the difference between saving a cat and delivering a box, so he does both.
No they're not. Broadcast Administrator and Shaper, on the other hand, just got married and have adopted twin buds.
But give it time, Mauling Heals can still happen.
Can't wait for the Thesis Defense.
You know, that sounds like a chess thing.
You know, that sounds like a chess thing.
- Location
- In My Parlour like a Good Arachne
- Pronouns
- She, her
Lol. In Mauls case I think she had already effectively destroyed all of the Theories that she had access to for her paper.
- Location
- Washington, DC
Poor, poor Dean. As if dealing with powered!Parents wasn't enough.
Whose plot though? And how did they find all this out?
This is going to come back (again and again), showing more of Taylor (and Amy), which is great.
Why are all the adults seem to be forgetting Taylor's "snark sense"?
How much of Taylor money from PRT can Taylor get for private shopping? Having Lisa, Victoria and Amy together to get Taylor to shop sounds like a challenge.
I really, really want to see this thesis defense... and the reaction of everyones to all the work that Taylor put into it.
Also want to see the Taylor+Reiley+Amy Fugue v2.0, given Taylor and Amy's additional snark.
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BerserkerZeroOne
(Unexploded Supernova)
- Location
- On your left!
Interesting DW fact: Peter Davidson, the Fifth Doctor, is the father of Georgia Moffett, Jenny - The Doctor's Daughter and the father-in-law of David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor.
You could have said Snarking Heals, but then you'd just be talking about Amy.
Mirriam Grave
The Bemused. The Amused. The Unstable.
- Location
- The edge of a point.
I don't know why Dean is nervous about that. I mean, I thought it was obvious that every father automatically goes and gets one the second it is confirmed they are going to have a little girl?
EDIT: Yup, I just sent a mass text message to my friends and they all agreed, and those with little girls of their own proceeded to send me pictures of their own gun safes and shotguns.
Uncle Jack IS pretty awesome. His friends tend to liven up the party quite a bit.
For EVERY other circumstance but the one which caused his trigger? Yeah, Blessed with Suck indeed... unless his character is close to someone like Xander, in which case, it is just shy of the greatest gift one can receive. Remember that everyone has different mindsets.
Funniest thing? I do think that pretty much every forum member here and in SB and QQ would probably have replied EXACTLY like the tinkers in PHO responded to the article.
I still remember the Mass Effect/Iron Man Quest. Didn't one of the Omake's end up in a Science Magazine for Theoretical Physics?
Ahhh. Some things are universal across the vast multiverses. Taylor tending to gate clothes shopping tends to be one of them.
Although this DOES put it against Legion's Taylor who quite liked clothes... even if in her case it was MAKING the clothes rather than shopping for them. XD
You will find that Common Sense isn't all that Common Taylor. Even outside of Parahumans, regardless of what Tagg thinks.
Also, despite theories to the contrary, I keep getting proof that PHO is NOT your equivalent to our SV/SB/QQ, and that you don't seem to actually HAVE one of those equivalents, which automatically makes your universe lesser than ours in the 'common' sense department.
NO! I DON'T CARE WHAT 'NORMAL' PEOPLE SAY ABOUT US! WE'RE NOT CRAZY! YOU'RE CRAZY!
WE'RE NOT THE ONES GETTING BLINDSIDED BY EVERYTHING!
WE'RE NOT THE ONES TELLING THE NEWS THAT WE NEVER SAW THAT COMING! WE'RE THE ONES TELLING THE NEWS IT WAS OBVIOUS AND THAT IS WHY WE ARE ALIVE AND HERE!
...Ahem. Yeah...
So how about them Travelers?
...oh, forgot to post that.
Heyo Travelers!
Hope they were present for the machine to clear them of their issues, rather than leave prior to it thanks to Simurgh Bomb Syndrome kicking in.
Jadesteele
Out of my Mind - Back in 5 Minutes
- Location
- half-way between 'Crazy' And 'Eccentric'
Maybe Taylor has developed a stranger power?
Dennis? Where's Dennis?
Well, admitting that they know she shouldn't have been surprised in public when she's out of costume would be a bad thing. Combined with playing up wanting to talk to Amy instead of Taylor and all...
The group that was detected was just that: Detected. They were not processed and thus were not cleaned of whatever effects were detected. As for who they are? I don't recall saying anything about that.
Ursine
Concerned Citizen
- Location
- Home, Sweet Home
Or she was subtly reminding Taylor that she should have pretended to be surprised.
I'm not sure...they're either going to see each other as sisters, or are going to end up dating, I reckon. I'm just not 100% sure which.