Interlude Two: Console Duty
Dean worried for his new teammate as he listened to her respond to Vista's comms. Thankfully, it was a routine "all clear", because he wasn't sure Pathfinder would be able to hold herself together in an emergency right now.
She glowed with the dark blue and washed out gray hues of sadness and numbness that he was so familiar with - there were far too many people in this city feeling those same emotions. That depressing combination of colors was tinged with some less common additions. Specks of puke green indicated hints of self loathing, while blotches of a color that he could only describe as cosmically-enriched purple represented existential dread. According to his powers, anyways. He had never had the displeasure of seeing that color before.
The worst color of the bunch was for the one emotion he hated to see above any other. Like a dark cloud that soaked in all light, an aura of pure black, almost halo shaped, encircled her head. It stood for hopelessness.
"Continuing on the assigned patrol route," Vista's voice was clear over the speakers.
"Copy that, Vista," Pathfinder spoke without away any hint as to her inner turmoil,
"You're doing good," Dean said. He hoped words of encouragement would affect some amount of positive change. "Triumph had to correct me way more the first time I worked console."
It was actually only a handful of reminders for protocol like remembering to always specify who you were addressing, but she didn't need to know that. Besides, Pathfinder really was performing in an exemplary fashion, so much so that he suspected she had actually read through the handbook beforehand, a feat that he was certain none of his other teammates could claim.
She was focussed too, determined, as he could tell from the strongly contrasting stripes of tangerine present in her aura. That was the one positive emotion he sensed, and it made for a bizarre combination in conjunction with the dark halo. He watched as the two colors battled for dominance. The tangerine slices would appear to encompass the dark halo, but never completely and not for long. The black cloud would push back again and again, until it almost entirely covered her determination. Despair was not so easily defeated.
He knew he had to do something. If it was within his power, he could not let this continue to eat away at his teammate, to consume the girl from that first meeting who was so full of life and excitement.
Something Dean had learned from years of experience was that directly addressing the underlying issues tended to make people uncomfortable, and that was especially true for people who knew he was an empath. He'd already told her about his powers, and abusing his emotion sensing to ask about the problem was an invasion of privacy.
So, he would do what he did best in situations like this. He'd simply talk to her as a friend. If you can't fix the problem, distract from the problem.
"I know you don't have a lab set up yet, but is there any chance I get some Pathfinder tinkertech in the future?"
When you want to get somebody talking, a lot of people give the advice that you should make it all about the other person. Ask them questions about themselves, discuss their interests, nod and listen, that kind of thing. It was a philosophy that Dean wholeheartedly endorsed. There was no faster way to kill the other party's interest in the conversation than by being egocentric right out of the gate.
"What, the power armor isn't enough?"
It sounded like she tried for a humorous tone, but it fell completely flat. The ugly specks of self-hatred swelled.
Instead of rolling with the failed joke or asking if she was okay, Dean decided to take the question seriously.
"It's awesome, Win makes some solid stuff. Never hurts to have extra layers of protection though, and with what you said about your powers, I can imagine that something like force fields might be an option."
A flash of lavender. A spark of curiosity.
"I can do force fields. It's gonna take some time to ramp up to that level though, and I don't even know if it'll be as good as what other heroes could make."
The lavender disappeared as quickly it came, leaving the green specks and black halo stronger than before. Was she disappointed in her tech? It was a common enough sight when talking to Kid Win, though his dejectedness never reached the point of morphing into despair or self-loathing. Maybe her tech wouldn't be as powerful as she was hoping for, but from the sounds of it, she had the competition beat on versatility. He brought her back to focusing on the positives.
"I'll take an extra layer of shielding any day, trust me. Now, I'd ask about ranged options, but nobody likes to see Wards using guns. Unless it's a bow, crossbow, or something so strange looking that no one can even identify what they're looking at, it'd probably be vetoed. Tinkers can get away with some things if they use their own stuff, though."
Though her expression remained unchanged, that garnered a bright red streak of irritation, like a claw mark on her aura. Honestly, he'd take that over the rest of the dischromic ensemble.
"They won't even let you use something like a stun rifle?" she asked.
The terrifying shade of eldritch-horror purple began to wink out of existence, her fears put aside for the moment. People were complex, and their emotions reflected that, but there was only so much brain space available to house all of that complexity. Give a person something else to focus on, something else to feel, and their other emotions would have to be shelved by necessity.
"Not really, unless you're a Tinker" Dean responded, "it's seen as an escalation to bring too much firepower. Maybe they could swing it for emergency situations, but not for everyday use."
In Brockton Bay, the line between normal operations and a state of emergency could sometimes be vanishingly thin.
The red mark grew, blossoming into petals that merged with the shreds of determination, while at the same time, her navy-hued sadness diminished.
"That's so dumb! I wouldn't make anything lethal, just stuff for stuns and captures! We're here to save people and we have to be able to stop criminals from hurting others. Are they trying to hamstring us? What the h-heck are they thinking? It just- it just makes me- urghhhh! I didn't realize it was
that bad."
The last vestiges of navy dispersed into nonexistence, replaced entirely by cherry-red anger. Even better, her tone matched her emotions! Dean generally considered it healthier to express negative emotions in a controlled manner than to repress them. Venting often led to the negative emotions burning out to be replaced by more positive ones.
However, one thing he was not excited to see was the merging of cherry red and black, the rust red child of anger and despair, hatred. That dark emotion was a poison, through and through, one he didn't want to see his teammate torture themselves with. Whatever she was thinking about in regards to the PRT and their policies right now, it was most definitely not healthy.
"Yeah, the rest of us all get upset at that sometimes too. It's like, we all have so much potential that just gets left to the wayside. But you know what? I actually think that you have a better shot than most at getting your creations cleared for use. The others like to rag on Piggot, but I think she understands our frustrations better than most."
Her raised eyebrow was accompanied by a streak of lavender.
He continued, "Seriously. I bet she'd hand out a bunch of tanks and let us be done with the gangs if she thought she could get away with it. It's not about PR with her."
She quirked her eyebrow higher.
"Okay, it's mostly not about PR," he said. "She cares about the bottom line and keeping this city safe, so if you can make something that doesn't cross the line into potentially lethal territory and pitch it to her right, you've got good odds of success, I'd say. Only in Brockton Bay."
The hatred mostly abated, leaving just a thin line of the corrosive red. In its place rose a lime green splotch, the color of shame, a close counterpart to self-loathing. He was not expecting such a strong reaction, but it showed that she really felt bad about whatever thoughts she was having. Not an outstanding change, but a net positive in his book. What mattered most was slowly chipping away at that awful black halo, every new emotion eroding a portion of her despair.
"What about containment foam?" she asked, "Surely, we're cleared to use like the one thing that is
known to be nonlethal and used only for capturing criminals, right? There are
so many things we could do with containment foam."
There it was! Lavender curiosity shifted into royal purple insightfulness. Though the yellows and oranges of various shades of happiness did not peek out yet, the delightful shade of purple was almost always a prelude to more positive emotions. He often saw it on Vicky when her aura wasn't flaring and she was discussing what she had learned in her parahuman studies classes. Dean tried his best to sustain this new result.
"We are cleared, actually. You'll get a class on proper use and everything. The reason you don't see the Wards carrying it around all the time is that there isn't enough to go around. Think about it like this. The troopers who support us need it to be effective, while we don't need to rely on it. Our powers are enough to get the job done, leaving the resources that the squads use to back us up. But, we can absolutely use it in the field when required."
Now for the
coup de grace, "But now you've got me curious. What are these
things you think we could be doing with containment foam?" he asked.
The despair was -if not forgotten- greatly diminished by the wave of purple. Even the ever prevalent numb gray became overshadowed. And was that? It was! A spot of pride, the color of creamy orange, shimmering over her heart. Though, it was followed up by a twin spot of a very pale purple - nervousness. The two formed an almost venn diagram shape, with the overlapping area flickering back and forth between the two.
She tapped her fingers rhythmically on the keyboard, "You guys know your powers better than I ever could." Another splash of shame and nervousness. "I'm sure you don't want to hear advice from the newbie."
"It's always good to get a new perspective. Nobody thinks in exactly the same way, so we all come up with different ideas. If you think it's going to be upsetting, that just makes me want to hear it even more."
Her look of utter concentration was a welcome departure from her forced neutrality. "Well, okay. I'm sure you guys have already thought of this, it's such low hanging fruit, but… Give Vista a confoam sprayer or grenades, and have her use her space warp to send it anywhere you need on the battlefield. Like, please,
please give the Shaker 9 the battlefield control devices, I'm begging you."
Dean was embarrassed to say that he had in fact not once thought of that possibility. Probably, that was because PR was so adamant about not giving her anything that could even possibly be misconstrued as a gun in any shape or form.Now that it had been mentioned it though, Vista's complaints gained a lot more context. Foam sprayers would synergize incredibly well with her power.
"You know, I actually never thought about it like that. But, I bet she's put a lot more thought into it than I have. You should talk to her, maybe back her up in front of PR or whoever. You're already her new favorite teammate, and you've only been here two days. Give her ranged firepower, and you'll earn her respect forever."
She frowned at that, "Should you be telling me about other people's feelings like this?"
"You don't need emotion sensing powers to see it," he assured her, "She only has positive things to say about you."
Somehow, that stoked both her pride and her shame simultaneously, not something he saw often.
"But I haven't done anything yet," She sank a bit into the chair as her yellow-green shame claimed more space on the royal purple canvas.
"You're already thinking of ways to increase her effectiveness, aren't you? I'd say that's just about the best thing you could do for her. Trust me, she'd love to go over ideas with you."
A surge of curiosity announced her next question, "Do you think they'd be willing to let Clockblocker carry a confoam grenade around on patrols?" She rose an inch out of her seat, "Hear me out, he may be able to stop people in time, but it's only temporary, right? But if he were to foam up his captures, that's one adversary removed completely from the rest of the fight. I mean, he wouldn't have to wait for any troopers to arrive, and they wouldn't have to put themselves in as much danger, so it's a win-win no matter how you spin it. I wonder if they'd give me some to experiment with."
There was a glint in her eyes as she gazed at something he couldn't see.
"The things I could do with confoam…" she muttered.
This was a massive improvement! Shame and self-loathing took a backseat to insightfulness and curiosity, greens ceding to purples. Now how did he break it to her lightly that Clock had already been denied regular use of containment foam on the grounds that he'd been caught goofing off with the equipment, and now they thought he was too irresponsible to use it? Eh, he'd let the time-stopper deal with that himself. Best to gently prod things in the direction of her own powers.
"So," he started, "what
would you do with it?"
"Can Miss Militia copy it with her powers? I can't remember ever seeing her use it."
Her seemingly unrelated question came out of nowhere, catching him a little off guard.
"She can't do any tinkertech, so no to the foam."
"Dang, I thought it wouldn't have counted. There goes that idea…" she absentmindedly glanced at the patrol routes. "Either way, think about what we could do with a grenade launcher and properly fitted confoam rounds."
He blanched. "The PRT lets Tinkers get away with a lot more than most heroes, but I don't think it's likely that they'll give you the green light on that one. It's a little… overly militant."
"Yeah…"
Her gray miasma of apathy began to resurface. Dean hated to put down her ideas like that, but he also had to be honest.
He needed to keep her talking, focussed on not spiraling internally with her negative emotions. He could ask what she was most excited to build. That always got Tinkers talking.
Before he got the chance, the communications light turned on. "Aegis reporting. Shots heard a few blocks out from the boardwalk, near the southern docks. Are we clear to investigate?"
The gray cloud around Pathfinder billowed out in an instant, replaced by a searingly bright pink anxiety. Worried, Dean was about to answer in her place or pass it up to the on duty PRT operator, but she opened her voice channel quickly.
"N-" she stuttered out. A breath in, "No reports from our end in the area yet. You are clear to investigate, but proceed with caution."
"Copy that," Aegis said.
He couldn't help but notice her hands shaking in her lap. She was looking at him expectantly.
"You did well. It's always nerve wracking the first time," he assured her as best he could. Really, she handled it excellently. He was expecting that he or the other operator would have to step in the first few times anything came up.
Speaking of, the comms light for the PRT operator switched on. "Console, here," they said in a husky voice, "We've got a BBPD report of an Empire drive-by out that way along 4th. Officers are on the scene, and the suspects have already fled."
"I hear you, console. Returning to the normal patrol route."
Pathfinder wrung her hands while the anxiety ratcheted down. "Uh, do we get access to police reports too? Or is that just a PRT thing?"
"We do. Here." He bent down next to her, clicking on the icon to open up the report scanning application. "Generally, the PRT operator is going to be in charge of monitoring incoming reports from the police's side of things, but if you need access to them for whatever reason you just have to open up the 'recent' and 'incoming' tabs, or you can sort them all by timestamp."
He looked at her seriously, "Don't be afraid to ask questions to your co-operator. Unless we're in an active situation, they're here to help you learn how to do the job."
"O-okay, got it."
The final lingering wisps of anxiety drifted off her, leaving a mixture of numbness and lighter gray exhaustion. Lots of people wouldn't make the distinction between them, but Dean considered the latter to be the better of the two. It implied a level of natural fatigue as opposed to the former's connotations of burn out or deeper mental issues.
It was never a good idea to push too hard with an exhausted person, so he kept his tone upbeat, "Don't worry too much about not having all the information or making bad calls. You're still learning, and there's a lot more depth to console duty than some of us like to give it credit for. If you ever give an overreaching order, your co-operator will be there to make corrections or guide you through the process."
It was difficult to tell whether that reassured her or not as there was no change in her emotional state.
She nodded, "Understood."
Dean backed off, not wanting to say anything to push her further towards any negative emotions. Sometimes, people just needed space to themselves.
They sat in silence for a while, nothing in her emotional state hinting at discomfort. No changes in the black halo of despair. At least her self-directed hatred was gone, and she was intent on monitoring the patrol.
He lost track of time a little, bringing out his phone to check texts from his girlfriend he had missed throughout the afternoon. The first thing he saw was a picture of an adorable puppy.
Vicky: *OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG look at this cutie!!! his ears are all floppy! I want to adopt him. gooood wish mom wasn't so against getting a pet I think a dog would do us so much good*
Her message put a smile on his face. Vicky was so exuberant, it even came across the messaging app.
Vicky: *hey so prof B introduced us to Manton limits today. I think it's interesting like how do powers know what and what not to act on? the researchers don't know if it's subconscious or hardwired. makes me think abt all the crazy stuff we could do if we broke past our limits you know?*
Vicky: *saaaaay since your dads on that business trip tonight and mom won't be back until later. I was thinking we could… explore our limits together? *
Vicky: *too cheesy? but for reals your place tonight?*
And now Dean was feeling a certain way. He probably shouldn't be browsing through his texts while he was supposed to be mentoring his teammate. One last check on the most recent message, and he'd put the phone away.
Vicky: *idk if tonight is gonna work out. something came up with Amy.*
That worried him. Every time he saw Amy, she was going through a lot of emotional turmoil, and frankly, he had reached some very serious conclusions about what was going through the healer's head. Again, the issue of privacy came up. Nobody, least of all Amy, would react kindly to having the emotion reader air out their dirty laundry. The best of intentions wouldn't make a lick of difference. Still, he wanted to know what was going on.
Dean Stansfield: *If you don't mind me asking, what happened? Is everything alright?*
She texted back in under 15 seconds.
Vicky: *there was crying involved but she doesn't want to talk about it. keeps saying she just had a bad day*
Dean Stansfield: *Is she hurt?*
Vicky: *only emotionally I think*
Vicky: *won't give details. I'm going to stay with her for the rest of the night*
Vicky: *sorry for flipfloping on plans*
Dean Stansfield: *It's no problem Vicks. Make sure to take good care of her.*
Vicky: *I will! gonna watch some movies together. popcorn. the works.*
Vicky: * I love you!!!*
Dean Stansfield: *Love you too.*
It seemed Pathfinder wasn't the only one having a bad day. Checking in on her, he noticed developments in her emotions that he'd missed while he wasn't paying attention. It looked like nervousness and anxiety were building up, though he had no idea what the impetus was. Did he miss something happening on the console?
Not breaking her steadfast staring contest with the computer screen, she spoke to him quietly, "Gallant, How, um-" she trailed off.
"I'm listening," he said.
And he meant it.
She spoke with a bit more volume, "How do you deal with the scary parts of being a hero, the things that you can't beat with powers. Like- like the gangs are so entrenched. It just feels so hopeless, that anything we do won't make a difference. Like it's an impossible fight. Sorry, I didn't mean to dump that on you. I just-"
"It's okay," Dean projected confidence and understanding, "The truth is, the fear never really goes away. Not entirely. Even with experience, I still have worries. Will I be able to save everyone today? Is this the patrol where I cross paths with Lung or Hookwolf? We all get it. Even Shadow Stalker."
She continued to face away from him.
"But how do we beat those insurmountable odds? We can't let it continue on like this. It's going to destroy the- this city eventually."
He considered the question. Of course, he and the rest of the Wards occasionally thought along the same lines, that the PRT and Protectorate should just
do something about the gangs. It was hard not to think that when he saw people hurt by the villain's actions day in and day out.
It seemed like Pathfinder already recognized that there was no easy fix to the problem. If they took the fight to the gangs, there would be chaos in the streets. A ramped up Lung. A murderblender Hookwolf. The rest of the villains riled up. Hundreds of innocents would die. Once the gangs were removed,
if they could be removed without half the heroes dying in the fighting, there would be a power vacuum sure to be filled by other villains with aspirations of wealth, power, infamy, or all three.
But, those were just excuses. The newest member of their team was right.
Something had to be done, or the misery that pervaded the city wouldn't go away. He just genuinely didn't know what they could do. He hated it, but he had no solution to give to her, though he believed in his next words all the same.
"It's not easy. It's never easy for us. But on my worst days, I find strength in my teammates and friends. In Carlos and Dennis, Chris and Missy, and yes, even Shadow Stalker. You too, now. I find it in the Protectorate heroes, in the director, Renick, and all the PRT agents. I draw it from Glory Girl and Panacea and the rest of New Wave. I look at all the heroes, powered and unpowered, and I know I'm not the only one fighting against evil and injustice. You are not alone. You do not fight alone."
She was looking at him now -actually, her gaze was in his general direction and staring past him, but it was a start- absorbing his words. Strange fluctuations played across her emotional aura, the halo of despair warping out of shape but not reducing in size. Numbness gave up marginal ground to determination, gray and orange swirling together in eddies.
He kept up the speech, pouring in his own emotions.
"You know I read emotions, but I don't like to share what I see. It's an invasion of privacy, and I don't want to breach the trust of the heroes I work alongside. But I'm gonna let you in on a secret. We all feel fear. Certainly, I do. But the others feel it too. All of them. Aegis, Clock, Vista, Win, Stalker, even
Armsmaster can feel afraid when the worst comes to pass. We're only human after all.
"And you know what emotion I see take the place of that fear most often? It's not anger or hope or determination. It's
camaraderie, the trust they have in their allies. So, I can't promise any easy solutions, but know that we'll always have your back."
A tiny sliver of light shone like a beacon from within the halo of despair. Half gold and half silver, it promised the most powerful of emotions. Hope and trust. It wasn't much, only a seed from which more may or may not grow, but it wasn't immediately swallowed up by the much larger despair. It was small, but it was resilient.
She gave a half chuckle, "I guess you've had to deal with my negativity all afternoon, huh? Sorry about that."
Dean held out a hand to stop her, "There's no need to apologize. If anything, I feel bad for being intrusive with your feelings."
"No, it's not like you can turn it off, right? And I don't feel as crappy as I did earlier, so… thanks. For telling me things I needed to hear. We really can accomplish more together, huh?"
"That's what I like to think," he said, smiling at her, "It's what it means to be part of a team."
She smiled back, a tiny upturn of her lips.
They settled into a comfortable silence broken up only by the occasional instruction on console protocols. Unsure if it was a trick of the light, he thought he saw the dark halo shrink a bit as the hour passed. Certainly, there was an upheaval in her base emotions. The numbness disappeared to be replaced with insightfulness, purple mingling with cloudy exhaustion. That was not an uncommon sight for a Tinker - he saw it all the time on Chris. Mostly, he was glad that Pathfinder, that Sam wasn't feeling quite so down in the dumps.
Only time would tell, but with the way she appeared to take this job so seriously, he expected her to be a great hero.
