Taylor made her way into the PRT building after lunch on Saturday, intending to tag along on the afternoon patrol as a replacement for having missed the patrol the night before. She was a bit confused when she made it in and noticed that only Carlos was around, but got changed anyway. Giving it some thought, the patrols were afternoon and early evening today, so perhaps the others just hadn't arrived yet.
Having costumed up Taylor grabbed some of the available pizza and a soda and sat down on one of the stools in the kitchen area. She almost toppled over backwards when she forgot to take into account the weight of the weapons on her back, including the maul, but quickly corrected.
She decided to check who was doing what today while she ate and found that the afternoon patrol had Carlos on console with Missy and Dean patrolling. Dean would then take over the console while Carlos and Chris headed out for the evening patrol. Which is probably why Taylor had been pointed at the afternoon patrol, Chris wanted more flight testing for his hoverboard.
Taylor was distracted from that train of thought by Assault entering the Wards area. She had known he was approaching, but hadn't really thought he was coming in.
"Maul!" Assault said, literally bouncing over. "Just the unannounced Ward I wanted to see. I just told Aegis, I'm pulling rank, come on!" And then he proceeded to lightly try and drag Taylor with him, only to fail to budge her. "What the hell? How much do you weigh?"
"Not that much," Taylor said, then finished off her soda. "Then again, I do have a good amount of weight strapped to me in the form of weapons."
"Huh." Assault then dramatically cracked his knuckles, grabbed Taylor, and dragged her along. "Come along, we have a patrol to get to!"
Taylor wasn't left with many options and went along for the ride. They stopped when they had reached the secure parking area, the long way.
"Why didn't we just pop over through the Wards lot?" Taylor asked once she was put down. "The staircase was right there."
"The what?"
"Staircase to the Wards lot, or the lot itself?"
"I didn't know there was a staircase to the Wards lot, I'll have to look into that. Right, well, today you are unofficially joining Battery and I on a joint Protectorate and PRT patrol. Battery is deploying from the ferry station and we are deploying from here."
Taylor was then subjected to a safety lesson for riding in the PRT transport, a basic rundown for how to react to situations the PRT officers expected might come up, and was even given some radio protocol warnings based on previous issues with Wards.
She countered the latter with a direct reference from the console class that contradicted one of their statements, resulting in someone actually checking the manual. Taylor was proven correct and they decided to shut up before they got something else wrong, though they did remember to have the console shift Taylor to the Protectorate channel instead of the Wards channel for the time being.
Finally the two PRT vans departed. One contained only Taylor, Assault, and a driver while the other carried a group of PRT officers.
"Why are we alone in this van?" Taylor asked. "For that matter, why did they make sure the other van had space for our driver?"
"In the event of a cape fight this van is likely to be sacrificed," their driver answered. "Probably by Assault tearing it to pieces on his way out."
"They only let me ride in the vans they want to get rid of," Assault said, shrugging. "I have no problem with that."
"Why do they want to get rid of this one?" Taylor asked, confused. It seemed like it was in good condition.
The driver chuckled. "In this case? The air conditioning doesn't work, the lock on the back door is a horror to get to work right in the rain, and the adjustment unit for the passenger seat up here hasn't worked since Armsmaster sat in it a couple months ago."
"So, right," Assault said, slapping his legs. "One reason I grabbed you today was I wanted to have a little chat."
"What kind of chat?" Taylor asked.
"I was hoping you could tell me why I suddenly started leaving ice trails behind me in fights."
Taylor blinked at that, and thought back on things. "Oh, did your snark figure out how to use the kinetic energy in molecules?"
"What kinetic energy in molecules?"
"Er, when you showed up while I was in the hospital I was working on an assignment for my science class. The material mentioned that temperature is basically the kinetic energy of the molecules bouncing around against each other, though that might have been a simplification. I mentioned it to your snark?"
"Huh." Assault leaned back, stroking his chin. "That would explain why all of a sudden I don't mind warmer temperatures, even if it made the sauna awkward. Don't suppose you have any other thoughts on things that are just kinetic energy in some way?"
"Electricity is moving electrons? But only active electricity, batteries probably don't count unless they are powering something. And sound is just moving gas or, I suppose, liquid?"
"Huh. Again. I never really considered any of that, and I suspect electrons moving around won't be enough to bother with. I already know that I can't get much out of the air, though maybe boosting my yells? Hmmm. I guess the important bit is that I need to get to practicing conscious control over draining temperature to power up, if only so I don't do it when it would be a bad thing. Thanks, though."
[Gratitude]
"You're welcome," Taylor said. You're welcome, too. "So, where are we patrolling and what else should I expect to learn on this trip?"
"We're patrolling the docks, and mostly the goal is to learn how capes interact with the PRT when both are operating in the same area. Most of that is going to be boring explanations from me and James here." Assault gestured at the driver. "Unless, of course, we run into action, in which case you get a live-fire demonstration. Afterwards I hope to introduce you to Battery to find out what her snark is like."
"Oh."
Two hours later Taylor was bored out of her mind. She had run some searches on her phones to see if she could get more details on a couple of things being explained to her and had found that most of what she was being told was direct out of a manual. One that she decided to read ahead in so they would hopefully allow her to skip the verbal explanation when she could quote things at them before they brought them up.
That hadn't worked, but they had finally run out of material a couple minutes ago.
Taylor had mentally noted but not said anything about the group of four capes on the second floor of one of the supposedly abandoned warehouses. Unless she was tasked with hunting down unknown capes she wasn't supposed to volunteer things like that, after all. She had also ignored the two capes in the back of a limo they passed.
"So now that all the explanations are out of the way," Taylor asked. "What do we do?"
"Sit here bored hoping something comes up?" Assault offered. "I think I will try napping."
Taylor just groaned and tried to decide between something productive like looking through documentation or something that would keep her mind occupied like Tetris.
In the end Taylor had gone with trying to read documentation on her Maul phone while playing Tetris on her personal phone and had done fairly well at both. She didn't come close to her high score in Tetris, granted, but that wasn't the point. She had found a number of interesting things in the documentation, though, and planned on taking advantage of some of it.
One thing she had looked for specifically was rules on guns, after the lesson on what to do when PRT officers pulled their sidearms. She had discovered that the PRT offered firearm safety classes and would issue sidearms to anyone who passed them, regardless of age. The hardest part would be getting her father to sign off on some of the paperwork. She had requested printed copies of the appropriate forms, figuring that it was better to try and fail than to not try at all.
Now, though, they were approaching the end of the incredibly boring three hour patrol. Said patrol was apparently going to end at the boardwalk and not at the PRT building, though Taylor was unsure as to why that was.
"Come on," Assault said, having woken up from his nap a few minutes prior. "We have one last stop before we are done for the day."
"Any chance you are willing to tell me what that stop is?" Taylor asked. She was suspecting not.
"Nope, but we are meeting up with Battery."
Assault led Taylor down the boardwalk towards where Taylor felt another cape was likely waiting, that cape probably being Battery. This assumption was proven correct as they arrived at a stand selling fried dough.
"Battery!" Assault yelled, much louder than necessary.
"Assault," Battery responded, then took a look at Taylor. "And Maul, was it?"
"Er, yea," Taylor said. "Hello."
Hello there.
[Annoyance. Hunger]
"So," Assault said, slapping Taylor on the back. Which meant he slapped her wok, which made a bit of a gong-like sound. Taylor didn't think it normally did that and wondered if Assault had done something with his power? "One benefit we have is that none of the three of us cover our mouths with a mask. Thus we are able to eat in costume! Hence meeting for fried dough."
Why are most of you hungry snarks rude? That isn't a reason to be rude.
[Annoyance]
"Perhaps you should have checked if Maul here was on a diet or something first?" Battery said, gesturing at Taylor. "After all, she is a teenage girl."
"Pfft," Taylor said, giggling a little. "If I were that concerned about what I ate I wouldn't have tackled the challenger. Plus a milkshake."
Well maybe if you told someone how to feed you or something you would be better off. I just know that some snarks keep complaining. What am I supposed to do about it?
[Acquiescence]
"Seriously? You ate a challenger?" Battery said, staring at Taylor. "How did you pull that off?"
"I was hungry. It was there," Taylor answered with a little grin. "Granted, I helped unstick some dumpsters first, and all of this was after riding a wrecking ball."
You don't know how to feed because figuring that out wasn't your job? Sorry, I haven't run into any snarks I think could help you. Are you at least happy with your human?
[Boredom]
"Well, I vote we order some fried dough," Assault said once it was obvious that Battery was stunned silent. He proceeded to push Taylor and Battery into the line at the stand.
Huh, she doesn't experiment with you, but you know that is because you don't give her anything to experiment with so that you can conserve your reserves. I can understand that.
[Apathy]
Several customers looked like they were going to get out of line to let the three order faster, but all three of them signaled that they were fine waiting. When it was their turn each of them placed their order, with Assault paying for the lot. They then made their way to a nearby table and sat down to eat.
"So how is Battery's snark?" Assault asked, causing Battery to look at him, then Taylor.
"Hungry and bored," Taylor answered before taking a sip of her drink. "But it doesn't know how to be fed and is responsible for being bored so there isn't much to do about either right now."
"I have no idea how to take that," Battery admitted. "What is a snark?"
"Your power, kinda," Taylor answered, shrugging. "Or the thing granting you your power, to be more specific, but I think most people don't make a distinction between the two."
"Oh."
"So, don't suppose either of you know why a patrol was done while Panacea is doing an out of town weekend? I mean, it was pretty much guaranteed to be a boring-fest."
"Because we like to keep people on their toes?" Assault offered. "I didn't plan it, and we technically aren't supposed to respect non-Endbringer truces unless they were agreed to by the PRT and Protectorate in writing. Paying lip service to it with the Wards via 'noticing a pattern in villain behavior' is allowed though."
"Huh. Ok." Taylor looked down at her empty plate. "So, anything else before we go our separate ways?"
"Well, I wouldn't object to you helping convince Battery here to participate in a cape swimsuit calendar."
Battery growled as she glared at Assault. "If hitting you worked I would slap you right now."
Assault grinned, then flipped back out of his chair with a loud "YEOW!"
Battery looked over at Taylor, who was blowing over her fist. She then turned back towards Assault, then looked at Taylor again. "Ok, if you just did what I think you just did then I think I like you."
"If you think I just punched him out of his seat," Taylor said, grinning. "Well, you would be right. He foolishly had me confirm that my power doesn't count as kinetic to his snark while I was in the hospital."
"I now regret that decision," Assault said as he stood up, rubbing his chest where Taylor had punched him. "I also now regret introducing the two of you."
"Just be glad I only used my fist."
"So, Maul," Battery said, standing up and gesturing for Taylor to follow her. "Given that I think you are my new best friend, have you heard of the access keys class?"
"I've been trolling half of the Wards with it since I joined up," Taylor admitted, grinning as she got up and followed, dropping her trash in a can on the way by. "Though I won't complain if you have found anything else interesting I might want to look up?"
Taylor spent a good hour with Battery discussing things. Unfortunately Battery hadn't actually come across anything interesting that Taylor was unaware of for Wards, though Taylor was able to point Battery at the 'request a clearance upgrade' form. Eventually they had to part ways, and Taylor made her way back to the PRT building.
On the way she was surprised to get a notification that she was required to attend an 'emergency meeting' tomorrow. She had no idea what that was about as there were no details beyond the fact it had been called by Director Piggot.
Hearing Assault make a request to the console did remind her that she was on the Protectorate channel, though. She waited for the console to respond to Assault before poking her own transmit button. "Maul to Console, requesting switch back to Wards channel."
"Console to Maul, request acknowledged," came back after another message had gone out to Assault. "Switching you back now."
Taylor got the beep pattern that signified she had been channel-switched, but not much was going on. She checked the time and found that Carlos and Chris should be out patrolling at this point, but given that it was likely going to be a quiet weekend the silence wasn't a surprise. Still, since she wasn't actually on patrol at this point she figured she might as well sign out of the radio app.
Making her way back into the PRT building via the front door was easy enough. She noted that Missy was around in addition to Dean. Which could be perfect for some of what she found, now that she thought about it. So she headed down to hopefully talk to Missy while Dean was still in the console's silence field.
She found Missy watching what appeared to be a live feed from Chris, if Carlos in the shot was any indication. "Hello Missy. Why are you watching them fly around?"
"Hi Taylor," Missy replied, turning around to look at Taylor. "Chris is testing a new broadcast unit he added to his armor. Things were a little more interesting when they were pulling some flying stunts for the tourists."
"Ahh." Taylor slipped her jacket off and set it next to the couch. "Budge over. Huh, is that your new utility belt?"
"Yep. I already expanded everything I currently plan to. So, anything interesting happen?"
"I got to join a joint Protectorate and PRT patrol so that Assault could ask me questions followed by two hours of all but quoting the manual on how capes and PRT officers are supposed to work together."
Missy flinched at that. "Yea, that sounds like a horrible experience. I at least got it in three chunks, not all at once."
"Yea, well. I met Battery afterwards and we chatted for a bit. She likes the fact I can hit Assault with my power and he won't just absorb the impact."
"That sounds incredibly useful, so you are probably her new best friend. Anything else?"
"Well, I think we have a few more classes to sign up for. Not sure when I will get them in, though, given the meeting alert I got."
"I got one of those too, any idea what is going on?"
"Nope. Maybe we will get to attend the classes together after all. So, did you know that anyone with SL4 or higher clearance that takes the correct classes can grab things they took the classes for from the armory?"
"I was unaware of that. How did you figure that out?"
"I looked up gun rules, requested the authorization forms, then decided to read up on the armory rules the gun rules page linked to. At any rate, you need three classes to get access to the armory, and it turns out that in Brockton Bay there are four classes available to Wards in general."
"Only four?"
"Yea, we don't keep tinkertech weapons available in the armory so the classes related to them aren't an option. That leaves handguns, containment foam grenades, tasers, and knives. I thought batons would be included, but apparently they can just be requested."
"We can get trained on guns?"
"Yep. And if we pass the course we can get issued PRT sidearms. We would need to spend a couple hours a month in the firing range and probably would need to justify actually using the guns should we ever do so outside of the firing range, but we can get them. The armory access would then give us access to ammunition for them."
"Huh."
"And I figure we can at least grab the containment foam grenade training, given that we should be able to easily carry a couple in our utility belts. I was thinking about getting both the taser and knife training just because options are always good."
"Knowing how to use my boot knife better than 'pointy end in the bad guy' would be nice," Missy conceded. "So should we both sign up for all of the classes now?"
"We need to get a parent to sign off on the firearms class," Taylor admitted. Missy slumped at that. "As I said, I requested the forms, but they won't be available until Tuesday. Beyond that, though? I figure we go for it."
The two of them signed up for the three classes they could take and mused a bit more on what the emergency meeting might be about. Eventually they decided that they were done for the day and went home before Carlos and Chris had made it back from their patrol.
Sunday morning Taylor and Missy met in the Wards area after both had costumed up. After a few minutes they realized that it seemed as though none of the other Wards had been called for today's meeting, which confused them.
"Shouldn't Carlos at least be involved in this meeting?" Taylor asked. "I mean, I think every Protectorate cape in town is in the building right now, why would the two of us be included out of the Wards, but the rest skipped?"
"I have no idea," Missy said, shrugging. "But barring exceptional circumstances we are supposed to attend any meeting we are summoned for. Then again, we are a bit early. Maybe he is going to show up at the last minute?"
"Want to go up now?"
"Why not. Maybe donuts are available."
Taylor and Missy made their way to the secure conference room, which had been locked to meeting participants only. Each of them was able to open the door and head in, finding that they were the only ones there so far.
And, as hoped, there were donuts.
Taylor and Missy looked up as Director Piggot entered the conference room, only for her to freeze at the sight of them.
"Maul, Vista," Director Piggot said. "Why are you here, and how did you get in?"
"We got notice of an emergency meeting today?" Missy offered as Taylor pulled out her Maul phone to show the Director.
Director Piggot walked over and looked at Taylor's phone, finding that it did indeed state that she had been summoned. She then got an annoyed look on her face. "Damnit, I summoned all parahumans in town with SL4 or better, and I know you have SL9." She then turned to Missy. "But that doesn't explain you, Aegis is the only Ward with better than SL2?"
"I filled out the clearance upgrade per year served form to top out at SL4," Missy answered, showing her own summons. "Should be nice entering the Protectorate above the minimum SL3 they get."
"The minimum…" Director Piggot mumbled, then facepalmed. "Damnit, Triumph."
Taylor and Missy just looked at each other, not sure what that was supposed to mean.
"Well," Director Piggot said, going over to where the donuts, coffee, tea, and juice were. "You two might as well stay, half the reason we are meeting is to come up with a solution to a problem Maul alerted us to in the first place. Vista, you know how to keep secrets well enough and Maul, well, you have shown yourself to think outside of the box."
"There's a box?" Taylor said, grinning. Missy snickered. "What box?"
"Yes, well, I guess I need to go back to picking individuals for these meetings," Director Piggot continued. "Given that I intended for all Protectorate members and got most of the Protectorate and two Wards."
"I thought the help for that function indicated that you could expand the parahumans group to choose Protectorate, Wards, or both?" Taylor offered. She wasn't permitted to call emergency meetings, but assumed that having the 'emergency, required to attend' checkbox available didn't invalidate the rest of the help. "Instead of relying on security level, anyway."
Director Piggot stared at Taylor, then made her way to the secure terminal at the end of the table. After logging in she poked around a little and swore under her breath. Taylor heard her just fine, though. "Yes, there is indeed that option. Thank you for pointing it out, I somehow missed it."
Over the next few minutes most of the protectorate arrived. Taylor discreetly introduced herself to Dauntless's and Velocity's snarks when they came in, but carefully avoided going any further. Shortly after that Assault and Battery arrived, with Battery plopping herself down next to Taylor with a grin at Assault. Assault pouted and sat down next to Missy instead.
Armsmaster and Miss Militia came in last, with Armsmaster sitting in a heavily reinforced chair that everyone else had left for him.
"It looks like everyone is here," Director Piggot said after everyone had settled. "Given that I screwed up when scheduling the meeting and accidentally excluded Triumph. The same mistake included Maul and Vista, but I figure they can contribute as well as anyone else. Thank you Maul, for pointing out the option I should have used when scheduling the meeting."
"You're welcome," Taylor said. She figured that this was not the time for joking.
"Right. We are here because Maul accidentally revealed a parahuman infiltrator during her power testing. Maul, do you have any idea what I am referring to?"
"I assume it was the pre-cog guy as I can't see an infiltrator having been going up and down in an elevator and Miss Militia and Dauntless are both here."
"How did you know Dauntless was one of the parahumans there when you were being tested?"
"I recognize his snark, now that I have seen him in person I can put a name to it."
Everyone else in the room other than Missy and Assault stiffened a little at that. Apparently that potential little gotcha with her powers hadn't actually sunk in for most of them. Don't they read things? Then again, Taylor hadn't checked to see what had been classified on her own record. Hmmm.
"I see," Director Piggot finally said, leaning back in her chair. "Well, yes. The 'pre-cog' guy as you refer to him is one Thomas Calvert, and as far as we can tell he is also the supervillain known as 'Coil'. While we could apprehend him at pretty much any time we have the problem of his base. Which we believe to be rigged to explode, and is situated under the financial district. We need a way to ensure it doesn't explode before we move on him."
"Can't Armsmaster just tinker up an anti-bomb device?" Assault asked, unusually serious. Apparently he didn't like the situation.
"I have been looking into the problem since we were informed about the issue," Armsmaster said. "But barring attempting to induce a tinker fugue or finding a friendly explosives-expert tinker I do not foresee a tinkertech solution being possible at this time. We just don't have, and can't get, enough information about the inside of the base."
"What thinker support we were able to get also indicates that taking over the computer systems in the base from the outside will fail, barring exceptional circumstances," Director Piggot continued. "Taking the base by force could give them time to arm the self destruct. Taking Calvert into custody is likely to cause something to trip as well. Half the danger may be in the data stored in the base, meaning we have to disconnect the data feeds we do know about. But that is likely to cause the thing to decide to detonate due to failsafes."
"Doesn't sound like that failure would be very safe," Missy mumbled. Assault chuckled, obviously having heard her.
"What we need is a way to disable the entire base at once," Miss Militia supplied. "The problem is, there aren't any good ways to do that. And we have been denied external assistance beyond basic thinker support due to the likely impending Endbringer attack."
Everyone just sat there silent for a minute, pondering the problem.
"Umm," Taylor finally spoke up. "What is the problem with inducing a tinker fugue?"
"There are certain drugs that can be used to attempt to induce one," Armsmaster supplied. "But they are hazardous and can cause long-term issues with the tinker beyond being addictive. Their success rate is about ten percent, and their fatality rate is about twenty."
"Huh." Taylor sat there for a moment, and decided that now was as good a time as ever for some things. "I haven't exactly been fully forthcoming about how I got caught in a tinker fugue, have I?"
"No, you haven't," Director Piggot said, leaning forward a little. "And I haven't found any record of it that wasn't entered by myself in the PRT systems."
"Off the books projects tend to not leave easily found paper trails," Taylor retorted, and Director Piggot grimaced. "At any rate, the participants had snarks that, er, meshed well and were focused on me at the time. In an attempt to get a better idea of what was going on I connected all the present snarks into a single channel, a conference call if you will. The resulting exchange of information between the snarks triggered a fugue state in the group of us."
Everyone else in the room stared at Taylor, causing her to fidget.
"Are you saying that you can intentionally trigger multi-tinker fugues?" Director Piggot finally asked. "So long as you have suitable tinkers available?"
"As far as I know, yes?" Taylor answered. "It has only happened the one time so far, and I have avoided talking to multiple snarks in a single channel since just to be safe."
"Are you allowed to tell us which parahumans were involved in your fugue?" Miss Militia asked.
"No, I am only allowed to reveal my own part on my own," Taylor said, shrugging. "I am not sure I am even allowed to tell you how many other parahumans were involved beyond 'multiple', but if you really want I can contact those that might be willing to admit they were involved?"
"That won't be needed," Director Piggot responded. "Unless you feel any of them are both available and possibly useful in the current situation?" Taylor shook her head negative at that.
"We can probably use this situation as a proof of concept," Armsmaster said after everyone digested that. "We know we won't get assistance right now, but if Kid Win and myself were to work with Maul that could form the basis of future sessions with more tinkers."
"Well, that is one option," Battery said. "But we shouldn't assume it is our only one. Anyone else have any ideas?"
They spent several hours running through a pile of other ideas, issues, options, and fleshing out details. They came up with nothing better than the fugue idea, so planned for running with it the following day after ensuring Chris was available to make the attempt. Armsmaster would prepare a lab for them to work in on the Rig filled with everything he thought they might need, and Taylor and Chris would costume up and take the ferry over early in the morning.
Taylor was instructed to head home and rest for the rest of the day as tinker fugues could be stressful on everyone involved.
