The fact that through the whole stint in solitary she was one letter away from being delivered to the PRT almost makes things worse. Like the readily available bell you can ring to drop out of SEAL training.
Perceptions of Taylor's Units
- Location
- Earth
Taylor would be all over that, as long as her units weren't hurt. Then people could appreciate them.
Squiggles
Ants
Turtles
Ants
Turtles
Squiggles
Ants
Turtles
Ants
Turtles
lol
Taylor is already irritated that her units spend most of their time in sewage. She likely would try to avoid further association with such options.
Well, she does spend a good bit of time swimming at present.
Regrettably for her, Taylor's doing all the design work.
I tended to think of her thought process when meeting the Heberts as:
"Act normal, act normal, act normal"
Prior to that, Lisa was convinced that Coil could get to her at the PRT. Writing letters was standing on the edge of a cliff and hoping that her skill at charades was good enough to tell a pair of deaf people how to tie her safety line. She was afraid that any letter she wrote might tip the scale in having her caretakers decide that she was mentally unstable and prompt them to turn her over to the PRT.
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globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
4.5 A Quiet Break
- Location
- Earth
4.5 A Quiet Break
The rest of the year passed without issue. I found it bizarre how much tension I could feel at times, without Coil even knowing I was there, but still, he had mercenaries, and actual ray guns. He bought tinkertech laser shooter, uh, attachment things for underneath the barrel of regular guns. I was engaged in a Thinker battle, according to LIsa. She says that the only time violence happens in one of those after victory, even if there still had to be an actual final battle.
Accord, down in Boston, does stuff like that all the time, Lisa claimed, and he even makes the news occasionally by proving he was responsible for two other gangs going at it or other stuff like that. The guy makes really complicated plans that even sometimes rely on the other guy knowing that there's a plan.
Anyway, Coil either did or didn't know we were evaluating him as a threat. Lisa agreed with dad that if Coil's power was some kind of threat precog, we wouldn't decide to attack him without immediately doing so decisively.
Though, in a way, we already had, I thought. We knew Coil's civilian ID. He had answered his civilian work phone while in the office of the downtown lair. His name was Thomas Calvert, and he was a PRT contractor.
Lisa said that Calvert was cunning. As a contractor providing extra forces, he worked irregular but reasonable hours, and worse, it allowed him to keep access to his security clearance. Lisa still didn't know all Coil's spies in the PRT. The creepy bloke talked to most them by email. I still couldn't make a good camera, and so Lisa had very little idea of what was on his computer. Coil had managed to stabilize his control over the Undersiders, but Bitch, who made superdogs, no longer lived in their base and had gotten a warehouse for herself near the edge of town. The girl was only called in for jobs, and it was a strained relationship for everyone involved. Lisa said that Bitch really should be a Rogue that provided trained service dogs, but that she was too socially maladjusted to make it work. I thought that was sad, but there wasn't anything I could do about it.
That was something that dad had to argue a lot with Lisa and me. That until Coil forced our hand, it would be better to give ourselves a better hand. Maybe Coil had a long game, maybe not, but currently he was doing a lot less harm than the other gangs. At least in the per person amount of suffering inflicted. Dad wanted them all gone of course, but currently Coil was a useful buffer to stop the E88 from taking the territory he occupied, and so it was better for us to have as good a plan as we could imagine, to ensure that he got taken down completely, if we even ended up doing that. Lisa was willing to try and get the base for me, but what she really wanted was Coil's computer, so she could take over his money and stuff. She also wanted to ruin his life of course, but she wanted to profit from doing so.
That was another thing that bugged me. The E88 were giant racists who killed and hurt people, but as near as Lisa could tell, they didn't do the forced drug addiction like the Merchants, or the worse things that the ABB did. However, they were the biggest gang, and if we went from smaller gangs on up, the E88 would only get harder to dislodge, and the whole time they'd be doing their nazi racist garbage. Still, maybe they would break, and as long as the three of us kept our heads down, well we wouldn't be less safe than we already were by just living in Brockton.
That was something I needed to talk to dad about. I had started to wonder if it wouldn't be better to simply kill Oni Lee and Lung. They were, quite simply, horrible people. The two of them were also the backbone of the ABB, and without capes, it would fall apart. I didn't know how to find them, but I could make a jelly inject something, and I'm sure there were plenty of things that Lisa could tell me about that I could buy at a store that would kill them, maybe even painlessly.
It unnerved me, later, how easily such thoughts had come to me at the time.
I finally had complete maps of the downtown lair. The passive sonar systems took a lot of my resources to process, but the active version was in the v4 power suit. I also had finished the camouflage system. The greatest drawback was that it cast a shadow and still couldn't adjust reflectivity. Still, for blending in against a backdrop, it did superbly well. Dad had bought me an octopus down at an Asian market, and I fixed it in a preserving plastic, and slowly identified how the chromatophores functioned. Then I had improved it significantly. Biology was just so, well, compartmentalized. I could do the same thing with much finer detail in less space.
Now a turtle could look like a stone blob. They didn't, because the system was expensive to produce, but I had held back on letting Lisa start to use the v4 power suit so that I could add in that system. She was keeping a low profile in the v3 when going out, so that she could really sell the case 53 story with the v4. I was making a large enough batch of camouflage matrix that I could upgrade all 8 of squiggles as well. They did most of the exploring now. The turtles were just too slow and dumb. The turtles were now fully based around gathering resources for me. I had a couple hundred turtles crawling around at any one time, and I had to make about 14 a day to replace the damaged and degraded ones that were either lost or recycled. Even though it only took me a few minutes to make each one, it still added up to over an hour just making the turtles to gather the materials I used for both making turtles and to get enough supplies make more complicated stuff. I was starting to see how in a year I'd be running myself ragged just to maintain everything. I needed to change how I operated somehow. I just didn't know how yet.
To my massive annoyance, Lisa had eventually confirmed that my library internet system was dramatically secure. Sure, plenty of Tinkers and Thinkers could find the particular ethernet port I was using, but she didn't know of one that could easily backtrace the unit system that passed the messages to me. To be blunt, dad and I had panicked and it was fine to go back using it. Lisa did provide some notes on what kind of topics and questions to avoid that would give hints about me.
Still, I had preemptively gotten my revenge, which I had decided was the best kind of revenge, by having dad rewrite the letters that I had sent to Lisa back before we trusted her. Since Dad hadn't known what Lisa has said until after he rewrote the letter, it has given her power all sorts of weird data.
Overall, Lisa was OK. She always knew more than she let on though, and she was annoying about it.
Lisa's lair had required some additional work to winterize it, but her home and mine had ended up being quite comfortable. My house was a lot less drafty and much better insulated from the work I had done to replace the insulation in the summer. Well, I had done it to disguise the extra electricity my work used, but still, the house was actually more comfortable.
With winter break approaching, dad was going to invite Lisa to stay over for a few days for Christmas. I had grumbled about it, but dad was sure she already knew where we lived and it had been over a month since Coil had even just complained about Lisa. Dad overruled me. I liked Lisa just fine, but I didn't want to give her even more information on us. Still, I made her up a bed in the house lair.
The rest of the year passed without issue. I found it bizarre how much tension I could feel at times, without Coil even knowing I was there, but still, he had mercenaries, and actual ray guns. He bought tinkertech laser shooter, uh, attachment things for underneath the barrel of regular guns. I was engaged in a Thinker battle, according to LIsa. She says that the only time violence happens in one of those after victory, even if there still had to be an actual final battle.
Accord, down in Boston, does stuff like that all the time, Lisa claimed, and he even makes the news occasionally by proving he was responsible for two other gangs going at it or other stuff like that. The guy makes really complicated plans that even sometimes rely on the other guy knowing that there's a plan.
Anyway, Coil either did or didn't know we were evaluating him as a threat. Lisa agreed with dad that if Coil's power was some kind of threat precog, we wouldn't decide to attack him without immediately doing so decisively.
Though, in a way, we already had, I thought. We knew Coil's civilian ID. He had answered his civilian work phone while in the office of the downtown lair. His name was Thomas Calvert, and he was a PRT contractor.
Lisa said that Calvert was cunning. As a contractor providing extra forces, he worked irregular but reasonable hours, and worse, it allowed him to keep access to his security clearance. Lisa still didn't know all Coil's spies in the PRT. The creepy bloke talked to most them by email. I still couldn't make a good camera, and so Lisa had very little idea of what was on his computer. Coil had managed to stabilize his control over the Undersiders, but Bitch, who made superdogs, no longer lived in their base and had gotten a warehouse for herself near the edge of town. The girl was only called in for jobs, and it was a strained relationship for everyone involved. Lisa said that Bitch really should be a Rogue that provided trained service dogs, but that she was too socially maladjusted to make it work. I thought that was sad, but there wasn't anything I could do about it.
That was something that dad had to argue a lot with Lisa and me. That until Coil forced our hand, it would be better to give ourselves a better hand. Maybe Coil had a long game, maybe not, but currently he was doing a lot less harm than the other gangs. At least in the per person amount of suffering inflicted. Dad wanted them all gone of course, but currently Coil was a useful buffer to stop the E88 from taking the territory he occupied, and so it was better for us to have as good a plan as we could imagine, to ensure that he got taken down completely, if we even ended up doing that. Lisa was willing to try and get the base for me, but what she really wanted was Coil's computer, so she could take over his money and stuff. She also wanted to ruin his life of course, but she wanted to profit from doing so.
That was another thing that bugged me. The E88 were giant racists who killed and hurt people, but as near as Lisa could tell, they didn't do the forced drug addiction like the Merchants, or the worse things that the ABB did. However, they were the biggest gang, and if we went from smaller gangs on up, the E88 would only get harder to dislodge, and the whole time they'd be doing their nazi racist garbage. Still, maybe they would break, and as long as the three of us kept our heads down, well we wouldn't be less safe than we already were by just living in Brockton.
That was something I needed to talk to dad about. I had started to wonder if it wouldn't be better to simply kill Oni Lee and Lung. They were, quite simply, horrible people. The two of them were also the backbone of the ABB, and without capes, it would fall apart. I didn't know how to find them, but I could make a jelly inject something, and I'm sure there were plenty of things that Lisa could tell me about that I could buy at a store that would kill them, maybe even painlessly.
It unnerved me, later, how easily such thoughts had come to me at the time.
I finally had complete maps of the downtown lair. The passive sonar systems took a lot of my resources to process, but the active version was in the v4 power suit. I also had finished the camouflage system. The greatest drawback was that it cast a shadow and still couldn't adjust reflectivity. Still, for blending in against a backdrop, it did superbly well. Dad had bought me an octopus down at an Asian market, and I fixed it in a preserving plastic, and slowly identified how the chromatophores functioned. Then I had improved it significantly. Biology was just so, well, compartmentalized. I could do the same thing with much finer detail in less space.
Now a turtle could look like a stone blob. They didn't, because the system was expensive to produce, but I had held back on letting Lisa start to use the v4 power suit so that I could add in that system. She was keeping a low profile in the v3 when going out, so that she could really sell the case 53 story with the v4. I was making a large enough batch of camouflage matrix that I could upgrade all 8 of squiggles as well. They did most of the exploring now. The turtles were just too slow and dumb. The turtles were now fully based around gathering resources for me. I had a couple hundred turtles crawling around at any one time, and I had to make about 14 a day to replace the damaged and degraded ones that were either lost or recycled. Even though it only took me a few minutes to make each one, it still added up to over an hour just making the turtles to gather the materials I used for both making turtles and to get enough supplies make more complicated stuff. I was starting to see how in a year I'd be running myself ragged just to maintain everything. I needed to change how I operated somehow. I just didn't know how yet.
To my massive annoyance, Lisa had eventually confirmed that my library internet system was dramatically secure. Sure, plenty of Tinkers and Thinkers could find the particular ethernet port I was using, but she didn't know of one that could easily backtrace the unit system that passed the messages to me. To be blunt, dad and I had panicked and it was fine to go back using it. Lisa did provide some notes on what kind of topics and questions to avoid that would give hints about me.
Still, I had preemptively gotten my revenge, which I had decided was the best kind of revenge, by having dad rewrite the letters that I had sent to Lisa back before we trusted her. Since Dad hadn't known what Lisa has said until after he rewrote the letter, it has given her power all sorts of weird data.
Overall, Lisa was OK. She always knew more than she let on though, and she was annoying about it.
Lisa's lair had required some additional work to winterize it, but her home and mine had ended up being quite comfortable. My house was a lot less drafty and much better insulated from the work I had done to replace the insulation in the summer. Well, I had done it to disguise the extra electricity my work used, but still, the house was actually more comfortable.
With winter break approaching, dad was going to invite Lisa to stay over for a few days for Christmas. I had grumbled about it, but dad was sure she already knew where we lived and it had been over a month since Coil had even just complained about Lisa. Dad overruled me. I liked Lisa just fine, but I didn't want to give her even more information on us. Still, I made her up a bed in the house lair.
- Location
- Internet, The
*those is after (I think?)
Really liking the slow development. Did Taylor discuss the octopus-stuff with Amy? Might be an interesting avenue to find out about her bio-tinker capabilities. I'm assuming she is coming over occasionally to check out the armor.
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Poliamida
(Verified Heavy Molecule)
- Location
- Beyond the Stars
Suddenly I have this image of a picture hanging from the wall that says 'lair, sweet lair'
A good chapter, even if the initial time skip threw me off for a moment. It's nice to see Taylor socializing if a bit by force.
globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
Once again is time for "science tips from idle readers"!
Didya know spies can know what your type with sounds alone? It's true! And scary! There are probably Russians right now hearing you type.
Keyboard sounds reveal their words
It's not even particularly hard, you just get a letter frequency table and match the frequency of a sound with how much a letter is used in English and with a big enough sample ( ten minutes in the article) you can map the soundscape of a keyboard. Lisa could probably do the same too.
Didya know spies can know what your type with sounds alone? It's true! And scary! There are probably Russians right now hearing you type.
Keyboard sounds reveal their words
It's not even particularly hard, you just get a letter frequency table and match the frequency of a sound with how much a letter is used in English and with a big enough sample ( ten minutes in the article) you can map the soundscape of a keyboard. Lisa could probably do the same too.
- Location
- Madison, AL
How interesting, mr author, please make a picture of the fish suit please.
Tisaku
Head Chief Thinkomancer
those was
of my
incredibly
Sandra Suit Description
- Location
- Earth
Sadly, my artistic skills are far lacking for such an endeavor.
Various pictures in the style of old fashioned monster movies are likely the best I can provide.
Critically, the mask has lenses disguised as eyes. So, big eyes.
A generally segmented 'skin' as well.
A generally segmented 'skin' as well.
Taylor thinks 'scales' not 'amphibian' for the fine textures on the skin
Finally, while Taylor rightfully thinks boobplate armor is idiotic, she's aware that the powersuit she's building has to look like it's the person, not covering the person.
This picture is almost fully wrong in all the details that draw attention to the fanservice, but it's got the right sort of idea. Keep in mind that Taylor is making this by hand, and there's a very definite limit for what Taylor is willing to make.
Use this picture as the example of what's edged past that line.
It's also far to slender. Taylor is building this to protect Lisa, not make her look like a skinny fishwoman model.
This picture is almost fully wrong in all the details that draw attention to the fanservice, but it's got the right sort of idea. Keep in mind that Taylor is making this by hand, and there's a very definite limit for what Taylor is willing to make.
Use this picture as the example of what's edged past that line.
It's also far to slender. Taylor is building this to protect Lisa, not make her look like a skinny fishwoman model.
If Amy is interested, or if it's plot relevant, it'll come up in story, so I'm afraid you just have to be patient
Though, I will add that Amy isn't interested in discussing her own power, or engaging in conversations that might lead to such a discussion.
The time skips are necessary, but they can be a bit of a jolt.
Taylor wouldn't admit that she's happier for talking to Amy and Lisa, but it is a good thing for her.
Uh, a lot...
I'll try to summarize.
Taylor triggered during her freshman year, not in January of her sophmore year. At the end of her freshman year she and Danny got her into Arcadia.
Lisa was just starting out with the Undersiders. Lisa doesn't know Coil's power.
Did you know that if you keep poking holes in my plot, the next PHO interlude is going to have a user, with an awkwardly similar name to yours, banned for deviant behavior?
Also, everybody, new info. Coil uses one of those awful foldable membrane keyboards that makes no sound while in use. He hates mechanical keyboards and happiness (though that last bit was something that was fairly apparent from canon).
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globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
No wonder they had to shoot him in canon, he was far to gone into evil
- Location
- Internet, The
Been reading The Great Toad Sage of Brockton Bay. Some of what the Tinker Chemist does might be helpful as inspiration, even if their power is fairly different.
- Treating clothes with chemicals to make the fire-resistant. (Great to survive Lung)
- Sewing impact gel pockets onto clothes to make them bullet-resistant.
- "Chemballs" to deliver chemicals.
- Instant-rust bomb (disables most tech, harms Hookwolf, hinders Kaiser).
- Sticky bombs.
- Instant-barriers to close off small openings (sewer entrance).
- Some back-pack mobile tinkertech laboratory to store and mix chemicals.
- Modified big airsoft gun to deliver chemballs.
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- Location
- Earth
Lol, exactly
No wonder they had to shoot him in canon, he was far to gone into evil
I like a number of these ideas.
Not that I'll tell you which ones ;-)
Still, I'll be developing a few of these ideas along different paths. Taylor's specialty favor distributed systems.
5.1 A New Player
- Location
- Earth
Arc 5 Friendship
5.1 A New Player
After winter break, I finally had a plan to improve my tinkering. I had tried everything to parallelize work, but in the end, I had to use my hands and my tools. That meant I needed better tools, or better hands.
Once I had the basic idea, I had considered it, and deemed it workable. I would add in 20,000 communication relay chains to each of my hands, each chain connecting to a single nerve in one of my hands. The chains would run to the surface of my super skin, and I would then be able to connect my neural system in a direct interface with my matrix processor, formally known as the map core block thing.
No, it was formerly nameless, that was for the best.
Anyway, ion pulses would trigger corresponding changes in the communication chains, that would propagate to the matrix processor. Eventually I would be able to adjust the matrix processor to act according to what originally were the nerve impulses of my hands. I would expand the, uh, I'm not sure how to shorten phrase 'the matrix processor', because even in my head that's long. I would expand the device to contain as many pockets of ingredients as I needed, and would control their interactions by directly adjusting the state of the device. I hoped to eventually assemble a turtle or other unit simply by thought. Oh, the device would need an assembly chamber, maybe about the size of a squiggle, or maybe twice that size in case I wanted to build something bigger.
I broached the subject of modifying my peripheral nervous system with dad, but he was less than pleased. Lisa sided with me though, and convinced him that if Amy was willing and able to regrow a hand, that it would be safe enough to test it on my left hand and then go from there.
I invited Amy over again for an evening. She still didn't know about Lisa, of course, so dad and I would keep quiet about that. Amy was more comfortable around us this time, which was nice.
"So, dinner first or cape stuff?" I asked her once she had arrived and gotten out of her jacket. She had her opera gloves on under regular gloves. No Glory Girl this time, too cold for flying, so just buses.
"Uh, cape stuff, I guess. Did you hurt yourself?" The last bit ended on a pointed tone.
"Hey! No I did not hurt myself. I don't think I will either, but dad is being a mother hen, so I wanted to bribe you with food to be a safety monitor."
"I can't accept payment for healing."
Amy got sort of a monotone there, so maybe bad phrasing my part? "Naw, not really, we'd feed you anyway, I've already got lasagna in the oven, it was just a joke. So, I want to add a neural interface to my hands to let me better interact with my tech."
Amy stared at me, partway through hanging her jacket up. "You're going to put wires in your hands?"
"Uh, yeah, sort of? It's a ionic relay built into a polymer tube, slightly smaller than a microtubule, and it will register nerve signals in parallel with the muscles in my hands. I will attach a polymer chain to each nerve, and work out how to interpret the signals on my matrix processor to allow me greatly improved tinkering, I hope."
"OK, you know I can only do biology?"
"Yeah, I know, but you can regrow a limb, right? So if I screw up badly enough, could you regrow my whole left hand?"
"Uh, yeah, that would work as a last resort I suppose. OK, that's reasonable, I guess."
Dad breaks in at the pause in this conversation. "Amy, you do healing at the hospital a lot, but well, would you mind another secret you'd have to keep for us? I don't think you'll mind, but it's about a way you could help somebody."
"Can't they just come to the hospital?" Amy appears mildly curious.
"Sorry kid, you need to agree to keep it a secret before you find out more. Before that, I can promise you nobody will be hurt, whether or not you know this one, and whether or not you agree to anything further, but like Taylor being a Tinker, you still have to keep it a secret."
"Uh, OK, but only if nobody is being hurt."
"Fair enough. So, before you even knew Taylor here was a Tinker, she has already rescued somebody. This person was trying to get away from a villain, who by ways we haven't been able to identify, had been able to cut off every escape attempt prior to Taylor helping. This person, if willing, and if you can, would have their appearance adjusted by you, so they can go out in public again. The villain has stopped actively looking for this person, but well, we like to think we're sufficiently paranoid, and the person we rescued agrees."
"Uh, and why not go to the Protectorate?" Amy is at least more thoughtful than concerned.
"Are you sure you want to know?" Dad asks rather seriously.
"Yes."
"Very well then. Coil has at least six spies in the Protectorate, and Tattletale makes convincing arguments that she would be assassinated before she got to the interrogation room."
Amy just sort of blinks and stares at dad.
"Amy, we can't really prove this to you, but that's been in part why we're so concerned with secrets. Taylor has managed to record some of his mercenaries while they were talking. Tattletale has ended up doing information searches for us, and while she's a Thinker cape, and so a lot faster than us, she's independently verified a lot of what we've been looking at ourselves."
Amy recovers her poise. "Well, get New Wave to help, Brandish is a lawyer, she can help." Amy really seems unhappy about the secrets now. Bummer. I don't think she believes how important this is, or dangerous.
I try to think of something to prove how dangerous Coil might be, "Amy, Coil has at least 40 mercenaries, and some tinkertech. He kidnapped Tattletale in her civilian ID, and told her she could work for him or eat a bullet right then. He is dangerous, and didn't respect the unwritten rules for not messing with the civilian IDs of capes. What if New Wave gets involved, and he sends 6 guys in a pair of vans to your houses, and launches a dozen white phosphorous grenades through the bedroom windows of your families' houses?"
Amy pales and stares at me in fear.
I backtrack, "Uh, well, I mean if we thought he was at all likely to do that, we'd warn you guys, but right now he doesn't know I exist, and we think he is pretty sure Tattletale got herself killed by a gang." I try to be reassuring.
Dad takes over for me. "What Taylor is trying to say, I think, is that Coil is a lot more dangerous than he appears, and our best advantage right now is that nobody knows that Taylor, Tattletale, and myself are onto him. We still don't understand his power, it's a Thinker power of some kind, and it can work outside of eye contact. Counterintuitive as it may seem, I think people are most safe as long he doesn't feel threatened. Telling more people only increases the chance that he'll catch on. Unless he's an active threat, or he appears to be about to become one, we intend to develop a plan to completely remove his gang as a threat in a single go. In the short term though, Tattletale would really like to feel safe going outside again, and a new face would help with that."
Dad is much more reassuring than I am.
Amy nods slowly. "Well, OK then. Uh, I won't be able to put her face back exactly how it was afterwards though. My healing isn't exact, and even if it was, I don't have, like, snapshots from the past, so it's a one way process for her."
"Is that why you can't do brains?" I ask curiously. Nerves, even just the ones in my hands are irritatingly convoluted.
Amy actually appears to seize up.
"Taylor," dad says, turning to me, "would you go into the kitchen and start setting the table and check on the lasagna?"
Ah, well, I guess I can try to walk with both feet my mouth. Hmph, it's big enough I guess. Still, getting dismissed from the room rankles, like I was 10 years old or something. It was a reasonable question and it made sense. I don't get what was wrong with it.
Still, I'm a good person, so I don't eavesdrop. Not that it seems that they're talking much, if at all.
Dad and Amy come into the kitchen maybe 5 or 6 min later. Amy is calmer.
Dad gives me a disappointed look such that I would be getting in trouble in we didn't have company. "Taylor, Amy knows you didn't mean that question to be hurtful, but she's already asked you to not ask about her powers, and we can trust her that she has good reasons for it. Furthermore, even if she didn't have even a single good reason, she has gone out of her way to both be friendly and help you be safe, when she was under no obligation and did it to be a good person."
Yeah, that's fair, Amy had been pretty decent towards me, I guess I really should respect her privacy. "Yeah, that's fair. I'm sorry Amy, I don't need to understand, you've been real decent to me, and nice. I just got a bit dumb and forgot what you had asked. So, don't worry about it, and I'm sorry."
She doesn't look at me, but responds calmly. "OK, thanks Taylor."
Dad does the parent thing where he looks me, then nods towards Amy, and expects me to read his mind.
I guess. "Uh, hug?" Dad rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, OK" Amy says, and giggles.
It's a nice hug, I suppose. Amy is shorter than dad, and he's the only person I've hugged in a long time, so it's also weird.
We all eat dinner, and dad and I talk a bit about school and work. Amy is pensive and pokes at her food, which makes me feel guilty, but there's not much I can do aside from not pestering her.
Partway through it, Amy starts talking in a sad voice, "So, I guess, since I keep your secrets, I can trust you to keep mine. I can do brains, but I'm not smart enough to, and I wouldn't get them right. Unless I can imagine everything that I'm doing with my power, it will fill in the blanks for me, and either way, I just can't remember everything. Even about just part of one person. If I regrow a limb, I generally do the mirror image of the other limb. For brains though, they're so complicated that my power would do everything for me, and I wouldn't even understand how to put it back or what it had done. It scares me, I can make changes almost instantly, and I won't know how to fix it. I can't fix my dad, because he's depressed, but I want to, but I'm..."
And Amy is crying. No more talking from her.
Amy surprises me by suddenly getting out of her chair. As she passes dad, he gets out of his chair and gives her a hug before she can leave the room. I get up and hug her too, and Amy cries quietly for a bit.
Yeah, dad is a parent, go go gadget parenting, or something. I wait for him to break up the group hug and let him start talking, "Alright Amy, it's OK, you can trust us. That sounds really hard and unfair to deal with as part of your power. Taylor, would you get Amy another glass of water, and check if we've got some ice cream in the freezer please."
We spend a few moments getting Amy to drink some water, and take her back to the living room where the chairs are more comfortable.
I try to be nice. "So, that sucks a lot Amy. I'm sorry your power is so unfair. You're still a good person for trying to do what you can with it. I've never heard of you making mistakes, so even if it happens... Well, I mean that it's just not fair."
Dad continues. "So, are you feeling a little better, or would you like to rest some?"
"I'm OK." Amy is pretty clearly not OK, because puffy eyes and runny nose were not how she looked when she got here, but she's not breaking down worse.
"Alright, well you don't need to talk. If you'd like, I've got what I consider a funny story about Taylor's first self-induced and unscheduled visit to the hospital."
"Dad, no!" I can't help myself, he never tells stories about me that are actually funny. Dad gives me another look, though not an angry one. "Oh, alright, assuming you'd like to hear it Amy."
"Yes, funny is nice." She's got a sort her monotone going at the moment.
"So, not even a decade ago, but thankfully for Taylor's dignity, nearly that, she really wanted to be Alexandria. She had a cape and would practice flying by jumping off of things and running around like a hooligan. One weekend morning, her mother and I are having coffee in the way that old people do, and Taylor is running around the living room, and Annette and I hear this disconcertingly loud double thunk, as Taylor stops making noise. We run to check on her, and find her in her cape and moaning and crying on the ground. Parents worry, and so we rush her the hospital, because she's getting a big lump on her head. The doctors say she's fine, it'll just be a big bruise. For her records, the doctor asks what happened. I explain that Taylor was playing at being a cape and we think she jumped off the couch. Taylor interrupts, and explains that she ran into the wall. It's a pretty big bruise, so the three of us, the doctor, Annette, and I just look at her. Taylor here, senses our confusion, and explains 'I was flying super fast, and didn't want to get bugs in my eyes, so I closed them, and then I found the wall.'"
Amy giggles, then looks at me.
I'm sad to be reminded that mom is gone, but I can understand why dad is telling Amy a distracting story. "Hey, I was 8, and if I was Alexandria, I would have won."
"Against the wall?" Dad asks, as if there was actual doubt that Alexandria could burst through our living room wall.
Amy finally breaks into full giggling and starts to relax against her chair..
"Alright Amy, so, I think we're all done with eating dinner. How about some dessert?"
Amy agrees, and we eat ice cream and give Amy more time to get settled. I also take a few minutes to put the extra lasagna in the fridge to send some to Lisa. I really need to dig a tunnel from my lab to the larger pipes and drains, it would make getting food to Lisa much easier.
"So, Amy, you don't need to talk more if you don't want, but if you do, Taylor and I will listen. Either way, we'll keep your secrets, so don't worry about that. Also, this evening got a lot heavier than I think any of us planned, so let's table Taylor and Li-Tattletale's stuff until another time."
"Yeah, OK Mr Hebert."
"Hey, Amy, how late can you stay, we could watch a movie or something." I want to be helpful, because Amy is nice and a good person, I guess. Trying to be comforting about fearing screwing up people's brains is not a topic I want to attempt.
Amy looks at dad questioningly.
"Yeah Amy, that's fine, but since we didn't plan it with your folks, I'm going to let them know that I'll give you a ride back to your house this evening."
After dad confirms that it's fine, we get settled and watch Spaceballs because it's ridiculous and funny, and not at all connected to anything else we've talked about this evening.
Eventually though it's time for Amy to go home. Amy and I get our winter stuff on while dad warms up the truck.
He drives us over to Amy's place. They love in a much nicer community than we do. The siding on all the houses is intact, and nobody has tried to repair their car by hand and had to give up on it. Still, I guess I'd have to say I'm happier than she is currently, so being resentful seems pretty childish. Yeah, I guess there's a lot of stuff people really shouldn't get worked up over.
I sigh, because speaking of that sort of thing, I probably should forgive Vicky. Though that was totally worth getting worked up over.
"Hey dad, and Amy, if things aren't too rushed, I'd like to say hi to Vicky, to, well, to be nice."
Amy is still unsettled, but nods, I guess she's still pretty upset, but is calming down.
Dad speaks up. "Amy, Taylor and I will respect your privacy, but you need to let us know how much is a secret, and from whom, OK?"
That gets Amy's attention. "Yeah, um, please don't mention this whole thing to anyone."
Uh, I really sort of think you should tell your parents Amy.
Not that I'm willing to say that out loud. "Sure, we can do that, right dad?"
"Yes, we can do that Amy. Don't worry, we will be discreet."
Amy nods and looks a little more calm.
We pull up to the Dallon house, and dad knocks on the door. A moment later Amy's mom opens it.
Dad greets her. "Good evening Mrs Dallon, it's a pleasure meet you in person. Please call me Danny."
"Hello Danny, I'm Carol. Thanks for driving Amy back, I hope there was no trouble."
"No, it's fine. Also, I don't know your schedule this evening, but if you can share a few minutes, Taylor would like to talk to Victoria." Dad glances at me. "Only briefly though."
I think Carol looks vaguely irritated, but she responds positively. "Yes, I suppose that will be fine. You are welcome to wait inside. Amy, please take Taylor up to Victoria."
I think Carol is tired or annoyed, but it's too late to back out now. Amy takes off her winter stuff, but I keep my jacket in my hands, so that it's more apparent that I'm not staying long.
Amy leads me upstairs, and I'd guess her and Vicky have bedrooms side by side. She knocks on Vicky's door, and I hear "coming", followed by Vicky opening the door.
She pauses in surprise at seeing me. I start off, a bit hesitantly, before she can. "Hey Vicky, my dad and I were dropping off Amy and I wanted to say hi."
Vicky regains her poise after moment. "Hey Taylor, I hope you two had fun. So are you hanging out here for a bit or what?"
"Probably not, my dad is here and yeah." Amy is staying calm, which is good, and goes into her room. I hope only for a moment.
"Cool, that's fine. Hey, some friends and I are hitting the mall this Friday, want to come?"
"Maybe, I'll need to check, but thanks for asking. How are things with you?" That would be a 'no' on shopping, but I'm polite enough to not say so like that.
"Doing well, school is alright, having fun beating up gangers occasionally, and trying to get better about my aura. I am getting better about it. I guess I had gotten careless, but it's something I'm working on."
"That's good. It's mostly automatic yeah?" She nods. "I guess I can see how that'd be easy to lose track of." I try to be friendly since I guess I believe her that it was just an accident. A horrible and humiliating accident.
We talk for a few more minutes, mostly about earth aleph movies. It turns out Vicky is much more into movies than books. Amy comes out of her room, but stays pretty passive.
A few minutes later and I bring the conversation to a close. I don't want to annoy Mrs Dallon, and she did ask we be brief. I say goodnight to Amy and Vicky and head downstairs. Dad and Mrs Dallon are talking, but they finish quick once they see me. Something about college. That's something I don't expect to have to worry about. I expect that even if I don't join the Protectorate, I can sell tinkertech anonymously with Lisa's help.
Dad and I head out and start driving back home.
"So, how was Amy doing?" Dad asks once we've pulled out of the neighborhood.
"She seemed OK, maybe tired. Her power seems to be quite a burden for her."
"Do you still want to be her friend? She seems like a good person in spite of her difficulties."
"Yeah, there's nothing wrong with her, she just can't fix everything, and she's a perfectionist or something." Come on dad, Amy hasn't done anything except have a freakout, don't be such a worrier.
"Sounds good, I'm glad to hear it." Oh, OK. He continues after a moment. "Did your talk with Victoria go well?"
"Yeah, I guess, I'm still not happy with her, but if she's trying to be better, and it was a mistake in the first place, so, I'm just going to try and let it go. I still don't particularly want to be around her for now."
"That's fine, and maybe I'm wrong, but it might be good for Amy as well. Most of her activities seem to involve New Wave." Dad is oddly negative about people getting to be superheroes.
We talk some more and I end up not actually having time for tinkering when I get home. The whole afternoon got pretty severely sidetracked. Still, helping others is good. Amy is kind of a...
Well, she's a good acquaintance anyway.
5.1 A New Player
After winter break, I finally had a plan to improve my tinkering. I had tried everything to parallelize work, but in the end, I had to use my hands and my tools. That meant I needed better tools, or better hands.
Once I had the basic idea, I had considered it, and deemed it workable. I would add in 20,000 communication relay chains to each of my hands, each chain connecting to a single nerve in one of my hands. The chains would run to the surface of my super skin, and I would then be able to connect my neural system in a direct interface with my matrix processor, formally known as the map core block thing.
No, it was formerly nameless, that was for the best.
Anyway, ion pulses would trigger corresponding changes in the communication chains, that would propagate to the matrix processor. Eventually I would be able to adjust the matrix processor to act according to what originally were the nerve impulses of my hands. I would expand the, uh, I'm not sure how to shorten phrase 'the matrix processor', because even in my head that's long. I would expand the device to contain as many pockets of ingredients as I needed, and would control their interactions by directly adjusting the state of the device. I hoped to eventually assemble a turtle or other unit simply by thought. Oh, the device would need an assembly chamber, maybe about the size of a squiggle, or maybe twice that size in case I wanted to build something bigger.
I broached the subject of modifying my peripheral nervous system with dad, but he was less than pleased. Lisa sided with me though, and convinced him that if Amy was willing and able to regrow a hand, that it would be safe enough to test it on my left hand and then go from there.
I invited Amy over again for an evening. She still didn't know about Lisa, of course, so dad and I would keep quiet about that. Amy was more comfortable around us this time, which was nice.
"So, dinner first or cape stuff?" I asked her once she had arrived and gotten out of her jacket. She had her opera gloves on under regular gloves. No Glory Girl this time, too cold for flying, so just buses.
"Uh, cape stuff, I guess. Did you hurt yourself?" The last bit ended on a pointed tone.
"Hey! No I did not hurt myself. I don't think I will either, but dad is being a mother hen, so I wanted to bribe you with food to be a safety monitor."
"I can't accept payment for healing."
Amy got sort of a monotone there, so maybe bad phrasing my part? "Naw, not really, we'd feed you anyway, I've already got lasagna in the oven, it was just a joke. So, I want to add a neural interface to my hands to let me better interact with my tech."
Amy stared at me, partway through hanging her jacket up. "You're going to put wires in your hands?"
"Uh, yeah, sort of? It's a ionic relay built into a polymer tube, slightly smaller than a microtubule, and it will register nerve signals in parallel with the muscles in my hands. I will attach a polymer chain to each nerve, and work out how to interpret the signals on my matrix processor to allow me greatly improved tinkering, I hope."
"OK, you know I can only do biology?"
"Yeah, I know, but you can regrow a limb, right? So if I screw up badly enough, could you regrow my whole left hand?"
"Uh, yeah, that would work as a last resort I suppose. OK, that's reasonable, I guess."
Dad breaks in at the pause in this conversation. "Amy, you do healing at the hospital a lot, but well, would you mind another secret you'd have to keep for us? I don't think you'll mind, but it's about a way you could help somebody."
"Can't they just come to the hospital?" Amy appears mildly curious.
"Sorry kid, you need to agree to keep it a secret before you find out more. Before that, I can promise you nobody will be hurt, whether or not you know this one, and whether or not you agree to anything further, but like Taylor being a Tinker, you still have to keep it a secret."
"Uh, OK, but only if nobody is being hurt."
"Fair enough. So, before you even knew Taylor here was a Tinker, she has already rescued somebody. This person was trying to get away from a villain, who by ways we haven't been able to identify, had been able to cut off every escape attempt prior to Taylor helping. This person, if willing, and if you can, would have their appearance adjusted by you, so they can go out in public again. The villain has stopped actively looking for this person, but well, we like to think we're sufficiently paranoid, and the person we rescued agrees."
"Uh, and why not go to the Protectorate?" Amy is at least more thoughtful than concerned.
"Are you sure you want to know?" Dad asks rather seriously.
"Yes."
"Very well then. Coil has at least six spies in the Protectorate, and Tattletale makes convincing arguments that she would be assassinated before she got to the interrogation room."
Amy just sort of blinks and stares at dad.
"Amy, we can't really prove this to you, but that's been in part why we're so concerned with secrets. Taylor has managed to record some of his mercenaries while they were talking. Tattletale has ended up doing information searches for us, and while she's a Thinker cape, and so a lot faster than us, she's independently verified a lot of what we've been looking at ourselves."
Amy recovers her poise. "Well, get New Wave to help, Brandish is a lawyer, she can help." Amy really seems unhappy about the secrets now. Bummer. I don't think she believes how important this is, or dangerous.
I try to think of something to prove how dangerous Coil might be, "Amy, Coil has at least 40 mercenaries, and some tinkertech. He kidnapped Tattletale in her civilian ID, and told her she could work for him or eat a bullet right then. He is dangerous, and didn't respect the unwritten rules for not messing with the civilian IDs of capes. What if New Wave gets involved, and he sends 6 guys in a pair of vans to your houses, and launches a dozen white phosphorous grenades through the bedroom windows of your families' houses?"
Amy pales and stares at me in fear.
I backtrack, "Uh, well, I mean if we thought he was at all likely to do that, we'd warn you guys, but right now he doesn't know I exist, and we think he is pretty sure Tattletale got herself killed by a gang." I try to be reassuring.
Dad takes over for me. "What Taylor is trying to say, I think, is that Coil is a lot more dangerous than he appears, and our best advantage right now is that nobody knows that Taylor, Tattletale, and myself are onto him. We still don't understand his power, it's a Thinker power of some kind, and it can work outside of eye contact. Counterintuitive as it may seem, I think people are most safe as long he doesn't feel threatened. Telling more people only increases the chance that he'll catch on. Unless he's an active threat, or he appears to be about to become one, we intend to develop a plan to completely remove his gang as a threat in a single go. In the short term though, Tattletale would really like to feel safe going outside again, and a new face would help with that."
Dad is much more reassuring than I am.
Amy nods slowly. "Well, OK then. Uh, I won't be able to put her face back exactly how it was afterwards though. My healing isn't exact, and even if it was, I don't have, like, snapshots from the past, so it's a one way process for her."
"Is that why you can't do brains?" I ask curiously. Nerves, even just the ones in my hands are irritatingly convoluted.
Amy actually appears to seize up.
"Taylor," dad says, turning to me, "would you go into the kitchen and start setting the table and check on the lasagna?"
Ah, well, I guess I can try to walk with both feet my mouth. Hmph, it's big enough I guess. Still, getting dismissed from the room rankles, like I was 10 years old or something. It was a reasonable question and it made sense. I don't get what was wrong with it.
Still, I'm a good person, so I don't eavesdrop. Not that it seems that they're talking much, if at all.
Dad and Amy come into the kitchen maybe 5 or 6 min later. Amy is calmer.
Dad gives me a disappointed look such that I would be getting in trouble in we didn't have company. "Taylor, Amy knows you didn't mean that question to be hurtful, but she's already asked you to not ask about her powers, and we can trust her that she has good reasons for it. Furthermore, even if she didn't have even a single good reason, she has gone out of her way to both be friendly and help you be safe, when she was under no obligation and did it to be a good person."
Yeah, that's fair, Amy had been pretty decent towards me, I guess I really should respect her privacy. "Yeah, that's fair. I'm sorry Amy, I don't need to understand, you've been real decent to me, and nice. I just got a bit dumb and forgot what you had asked. So, don't worry about it, and I'm sorry."
She doesn't look at me, but responds calmly. "OK, thanks Taylor."
Dad does the parent thing where he looks me, then nods towards Amy, and expects me to read his mind.
I guess. "Uh, hug?" Dad rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, OK" Amy says, and giggles.
It's a nice hug, I suppose. Amy is shorter than dad, and he's the only person I've hugged in a long time, so it's also weird.
We all eat dinner, and dad and I talk a bit about school and work. Amy is pensive and pokes at her food, which makes me feel guilty, but there's not much I can do aside from not pestering her.
Partway through it, Amy starts talking in a sad voice, "So, I guess, since I keep your secrets, I can trust you to keep mine. I can do brains, but I'm not smart enough to, and I wouldn't get them right. Unless I can imagine everything that I'm doing with my power, it will fill in the blanks for me, and either way, I just can't remember everything. Even about just part of one person. If I regrow a limb, I generally do the mirror image of the other limb. For brains though, they're so complicated that my power would do everything for me, and I wouldn't even understand how to put it back or what it had done. It scares me, I can make changes almost instantly, and I won't know how to fix it. I can't fix my dad, because he's depressed, but I want to, but I'm..."
And Amy is crying. No more talking from her.
Amy surprises me by suddenly getting out of her chair. As she passes dad, he gets out of his chair and gives her a hug before she can leave the room. I get up and hug her too, and Amy cries quietly for a bit.
Yeah, dad is a parent, go go gadget parenting, or something. I wait for him to break up the group hug and let him start talking, "Alright Amy, it's OK, you can trust us. That sounds really hard and unfair to deal with as part of your power. Taylor, would you get Amy another glass of water, and check if we've got some ice cream in the freezer please."
We spend a few moments getting Amy to drink some water, and take her back to the living room where the chairs are more comfortable.
I try to be nice. "So, that sucks a lot Amy. I'm sorry your power is so unfair. You're still a good person for trying to do what you can with it. I've never heard of you making mistakes, so even if it happens... Well, I mean that it's just not fair."
Dad continues. "So, are you feeling a little better, or would you like to rest some?"
"I'm OK." Amy is pretty clearly not OK, because puffy eyes and runny nose were not how she looked when she got here, but she's not breaking down worse.
"Alright, well you don't need to talk. If you'd like, I've got what I consider a funny story about Taylor's first self-induced and unscheduled visit to the hospital."
"Dad, no!" I can't help myself, he never tells stories about me that are actually funny. Dad gives me another look, though not an angry one. "Oh, alright, assuming you'd like to hear it Amy."
"Yes, funny is nice." She's got a sort her monotone going at the moment.
"So, not even a decade ago, but thankfully for Taylor's dignity, nearly that, she really wanted to be Alexandria. She had a cape and would practice flying by jumping off of things and running around like a hooligan. One weekend morning, her mother and I are having coffee in the way that old people do, and Taylor is running around the living room, and Annette and I hear this disconcertingly loud double thunk, as Taylor stops making noise. We run to check on her, and find her in her cape and moaning and crying on the ground. Parents worry, and so we rush her the hospital, because she's getting a big lump on her head. The doctors say she's fine, it'll just be a big bruise. For her records, the doctor asks what happened. I explain that Taylor was playing at being a cape and we think she jumped off the couch. Taylor interrupts, and explains that she ran into the wall. It's a pretty big bruise, so the three of us, the doctor, Annette, and I just look at her. Taylor here, senses our confusion, and explains 'I was flying super fast, and didn't want to get bugs in my eyes, so I closed them, and then I found the wall.'"
Amy giggles, then looks at me.
I'm sad to be reminded that mom is gone, but I can understand why dad is telling Amy a distracting story. "Hey, I was 8, and if I was Alexandria, I would have won."
"Against the wall?" Dad asks, as if there was actual doubt that Alexandria could burst through our living room wall.
Amy finally breaks into full giggling and starts to relax against her chair..
"Alright Amy, so, I think we're all done with eating dinner. How about some dessert?"
Amy agrees, and we eat ice cream and give Amy more time to get settled. I also take a few minutes to put the extra lasagna in the fridge to send some to Lisa. I really need to dig a tunnel from my lab to the larger pipes and drains, it would make getting food to Lisa much easier.
"So, Amy, you don't need to talk more if you don't want, but if you do, Taylor and I will listen. Either way, we'll keep your secrets, so don't worry about that. Also, this evening got a lot heavier than I think any of us planned, so let's table Taylor and Li-Tattletale's stuff until another time."
"Yeah, OK Mr Hebert."
"Hey, Amy, how late can you stay, we could watch a movie or something." I want to be helpful, because Amy is nice and a good person, I guess. Trying to be comforting about fearing screwing up people's brains is not a topic I want to attempt.
Amy looks at dad questioningly.
"Yeah Amy, that's fine, but since we didn't plan it with your folks, I'm going to let them know that I'll give you a ride back to your house this evening."
After dad confirms that it's fine, we get settled and watch Spaceballs because it's ridiculous and funny, and not at all connected to anything else we've talked about this evening.
Eventually though it's time for Amy to go home. Amy and I get our winter stuff on while dad warms up the truck.
He drives us over to Amy's place. They love in a much nicer community than we do. The siding on all the houses is intact, and nobody has tried to repair their car by hand and had to give up on it. Still, I guess I'd have to say I'm happier than she is currently, so being resentful seems pretty childish. Yeah, I guess there's a lot of stuff people really shouldn't get worked up over.
I sigh, because speaking of that sort of thing, I probably should forgive Vicky. Though that was totally worth getting worked up over.
"Hey dad, and Amy, if things aren't too rushed, I'd like to say hi to Vicky, to, well, to be nice."
Amy is still unsettled, but nods, I guess she's still pretty upset, but is calming down.
Dad speaks up. "Amy, Taylor and I will respect your privacy, but you need to let us know how much is a secret, and from whom, OK?"
That gets Amy's attention. "Yeah, um, please don't mention this whole thing to anyone."
Uh, I really sort of think you should tell your parents Amy.
Not that I'm willing to say that out loud. "Sure, we can do that, right dad?"
"Yes, we can do that Amy. Don't worry, we will be discreet."
Amy nods and looks a little more calm.
We pull up to the Dallon house, and dad knocks on the door. A moment later Amy's mom opens it.
Dad greets her. "Good evening Mrs Dallon, it's a pleasure meet you in person. Please call me Danny."
"Hello Danny, I'm Carol. Thanks for driving Amy back, I hope there was no trouble."
"No, it's fine. Also, I don't know your schedule this evening, but if you can share a few minutes, Taylor would like to talk to Victoria." Dad glances at me. "Only briefly though."
I think Carol looks vaguely irritated, but she responds positively. "Yes, I suppose that will be fine. You are welcome to wait inside. Amy, please take Taylor up to Victoria."
I think Carol is tired or annoyed, but it's too late to back out now. Amy takes off her winter stuff, but I keep my jacket in my hands, so that it's more apparent that I'm not staying long.
Amy leads me upstairs, and I'd guess her and Vicky have bedrooms side by side. She knocks on Vicky's door, and I hear "coming", followed by Vicky opening the door.
She pauses in surprise at seeing me. I start off, a bit hesitantly, before she can. "Hey Vicky, my dad and I were dropping off Amy and I wanted to say hi."
Vicky regains her poise after moment. "Hey Taylor, I hope you two had fun. So are you hanging out here for a bit or what?"
"Probably not, my dad is here and yeah." Amy is staying calm, which is good, and goes into her room. I hope only for a moment.
"Cool, that's fine. Hey, some friends and I are hitting the mall this Friday, want to come?"
"Maybe, I'll need to check, but thanks for asking. How are things with you?" That would be a 'no' on shopping, but I'm polite enough to not say so like that.
"Doing well, school is alright, having fun beating up gangers occasionally, and trying to get better about my aura. I am getting better about it. I guess I had gotten careless, but it's something I'm working on."
"That's good. It's mostly automatic yeah?" She nods. "I guess I can see how that'd be easy to lose track of." I try to be friendly since I guess I believe her that it was just an accident. A horrible and humiliating accident.
We talk for a few more minutes, mostly about earth aleph movies. It turns out Vicky is much more into movies than books. Amy comes out of her room, but stays pretty passive.
A few minutes later and I bring the conversation to a close. I don't want to annoy Mrs Dallon, and she did ask we be brief. I say goodnight to Amy and Vicky and head downstairs. Dad and Mrs Dallon are talking, but they finish quick once they see me. Something about college. That's something I don't expect to have to worry about. I expect that even if I don't join the Protectorate, I can sell tinkertech anonymously with Lisa's help.
Dad and I head out and start driving back home.
"So, how was Amy doing?" Dad asks once we've pulled out of the neighborhood.
"She seemed OK, maybe tired. Her power seems to be quite a burden for her."
"Do you still want to be her friend? She seems like a good person in spite of her difficulties."
"Yeah, there's nothing wrong with her, she just can't fix everything, and she's a perfectionist or something." Come on dad, Amy hasn't done anything except have a freakout, don't be such a worrier.
"Sounds good, I'm glad to hear it." Oh, OK. He continues after a moment. "Did your talk with Victoria go well?"
"Yeah, I guess, I'm still not happy with her, but if she's trying to be better, and it was a mistake in the first place, so, I'm just going to try and let it go. I still don't particularly want to be around her for now."
"That's fine, and maybe I'm wrong, but it might be good for Amy as well. Most of her activities seem to involve New Wave." Dad is oddly negative about people getting to be superheroes.
We talk some more and I end up not actually having time for tinkering when I get home. The whole afternoon got pretty severely sidetracked. Still, helping others is good. Amy is kind of a...
Well, she's a good acquaintance anyway.
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Poliamida
(Verified Heavy Molecule)
- Location
- Beyond the Stars
Well, it started, first she improves her hands and then she'll start adding hands.
*facepalm* it's friend! Say it after me, F-R-I-E-N-D!
That was adorable, i like the way you write Amy and Taylor, both have massive issues but are trying to do good despite that.
- Location
- Internet, The
Trusting anyone. opening up to them, even forgiving someone? Such an AU Taylor… /s
Also, Taylor just not getting what Amy's issue is is hilarious.
Also, Taylor just not getting what Amy's issue is is hilarious.
*live (presumably)
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- Location
- Earth
Presumably
(Thanks for the correction.)
Everybody needs an extra helping hand occasionally.
Taylor doesn't say the bad word.
Yeah, part of both of their characterizations was trying to give young teenager responses to both of them. I generally think of teenagers as kids who have forgotten that they're still kids.
Also, it vaguely annoys me that Amy in fanon usually ignores her dad. Between her parents, I can't see how Amy wouldn't think her life would get better if only she could use her power effectively and fix her dad's depression. Mark, in canon, seemed to consider Amy his kid, or at least much more so than Carol. Since Amy can't bring herself to try to fix him, it seemed an obvious point an to latch onto as to why her life sucks.
Uh, which issue do you think Taylor isn't getting?
There's enough issues to choose from that I'm not actually sure what you mean.
- Location
- Internet, The
More precisely, I refer to the severity of what Amy has revealed. Taylor just does not have the context or social awareness to fully appreciate how big of a deal talking about her power being "imprecise" and "trying to recreate stuff from memory" is for Amy.
Still waiting for Taylor telling Tattletale about it while trying to refrain from giving away secrets. Also opens up the following potential misunderstanding:
Taylor: "…and that is what happened. You probably noticed I left something out. If you figure out what it is, please keep it a secret, it's a big deal to her." [Referring to her choosing not to do brains.]
Lisa: "Of course I'll keep her secret. I wouldn't want her to be hunted down for being a fleshcrafter more powerful than Nilbog.
The paranoia from all the heroes she has put her hands on alone would be terrible!"
Taylor: "
"
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it could be the Adopted Child one, the Carol is weird and treats me like a living bomb one, the I Want to bone my Adoptive Sis (and that issue has Issues), the My Powers LIKE to experiment and i fear what would happen if i 'let it go', etc.
and i think Taylor would only get the last one, and that is in a "why don't we try this/I have an IDEA"
and i think Taylor would only get the last one, and that is in a "why don't we try this/I have an IDEA"
globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
"she knows, and she still trusts me!"
Followed by Taylor getting a custom job brute 1 biology enhancement... and boobs
Followed by Taylor getting a custom job brute 1 biology enhancement... and boobs
IvanDead
My bones are made of schadenfreude.
- Location
- Brasil
"I knew that flat chest was a disease!"-Taylor;
"*Facepalm*Adding this to the 'Awkward stories about my daughter' list."-Danny.
- Location
- Earth
Correct
I'm surprised you would say this, given your previous thought in the same comment.
Taylor didn't get that these are secrets.
Amy: *Disturbing implications confession*
Taylor: *Heard Amy says that she feels guilty that she can't heal everyone*
Taylor: "Yes, Amy, we'll keep your 'secrets' safe." (Confused Taylor wonders how Amy can't be aware that everybody doesn't already know that Amy can't heal everyone, because otherwise, Panacea the hero would already have healed everyone.)
Later
Lisa: "So anything I should avoid talking to Amy about?"
Taylor: "Eh, not really."
Lisa's Power: *Amy wishes her power was better. Amy's power has limitations that makes Amy sad.*
Miscommunication does seem to be the start of a real friendship.
Taylor would decline biology enhancement. It's a implication Amy likes; her presence being wanted for the express purpose of not having used her power.
Taylor: "See Dad, I've had Amy as backup every time, but I've never needed help. Now just let me do (bizarre and weird tinker thing) because I'm sure nothing will go wrong, just like nothing went wrong in the totally different things I've done previously."
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globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
But what are friends for if not to do nice things for each other unprompted?
"Oh that predisposition for cancer must go, clear the acne ( wouldn't want that to interfere with the polymer! ) and since we're here let's sharpen that eyesight."
A year later...
Taylor is looking like raven haired amazon that vaguely reminds you of glory girl and Amy has polymer blades under her nails, bone reinforcement, and her gloves can become power-permeable at will.
"Oh that predisposition for cancer must go, clear the acne ( wouldn't want that to interfere with the polymer! ) and since we're here let's sharpen that eyesight."
A year later...
Taylor is looking like raven haired amazon that vaguely reminds you of glory girl and Amy has polymer blades under her nails, bone reinforcement, and her gloves can become power-permeable at will.
- Location
- Internet, The
She does not understand the scope of the secret, but she can understand that Amy wants to keep it secret and do her best to comply for Amy without requiring knowledge of the underlying reasons.