A/N: So, I had planned for there to be a series of scenes and events that would happen once Taylor finally got back home. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't weave them together in a seamless way where one event would then merge into each other in a way that made sense. Like there's no way to connect plot A to plot B together.
So I'm going to do that thing where I skip weeks in this story to show us snapshots of what was going on in Taylor's life thus far to set things up for relevant stuff happening later on in future chapters. Just assume that Nora's group was just vibing and learning more about what living on Earth Bet is like in between all that skipped time. And mostly working with the PRT.
It's a cheap tactic, but it's the only way I know how to get past this writer's block. So if I can't write something filling that ties plot A and plot B together, Then I'm going to show scenes of plot A and then time-skip ahead to plot B's scenes and let you know that there was a lot of time that happened in-between.
Hopefully, you won't find that too jarring.
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Taylor's search results when she simply typed in "blueprints" were surprisingly productive. There was an actual site called "theblueprints.com" which was exactly what the URL said on its tin, which hosted a hundred blueprints in different categories from ships to weapons and the like.
Naturally, this excited Nora so much she could hardly contain herself. But moments later her "bubble" burst once Taylor discovered that the blueprints site, half the time didn't so much contain actual blueprints that showed the inner workings of all models, as they merely just had images of things like cars from the front, top, back and side views as a way to build toy models from reference. No actual blueprints of how the machines worked or what it looked like on the inside. So, this was mainly a site for hobbyists.
However, that didn't mean they didn't contain any genuine blueprints… they just had to do a lot of digging to find something that would work for Nora's power. Amazingly enough, this real blueprint of an RV truck seemed to work? Taylor had to zoom in and move the image all over for Nora to be able to see all the details on her phone screen, but Nora's power was able to 'scan' it enough to build up a rough image of what Nora wanted to make.
And then they went outside to see Nora summon a prefabbed RV Truck into existence. And this resulted in the second disappointment that Nora discovered so far… namely, that the very first vehicle she was able to bring into existence didn't have an engine! Sure, it had everything else from the blueprints such as a stove, a mini-fridge, and beds. But no engine.
It was then that Taylor spoke up. "Maybe it's like with the crops? You can't instantly conjure up food, the settlers have to do the hard work themselves to make the crops grow food. Likewise, maybe they have to know how to make and install engines to make this RV run?"
Hancock nodded. "Makes sense. If Nora did everything, then the settlers would grow too dependent on Nora and wouldn't know what to do without her around. That wouldn't be the mark of a successful settlement. A successful settlement would be entirely self-sufficient with each settler knowing what to do to bring in the resources they need. And a moving home like that one would need somebody who knows their engines. Otherwise, they'd end up stranded in the wasteland."
Nora mulled this over. She was still annoyed at the lack of a car engine, but she sighed. She muttered, "I suppose Sturges will enjoy the challenge. I notice he's been working on a motorcycle too."
Damn power, why did it have to be so...arbitrary about certain things?? Was it because the blueprint didn't show an engine?
She pulled the RV back into her scrapping pocket space and grumbled. "Whatever. Show me the rest of the blueprints?"
~~~~~~~~~
In the end, a few more RV styles were added to her collections of homes she could make, even those trailer types without the vehicles, along with a quite fair amount of miniature toys featuring highly articulated construction vehicles like dump trucks, cranes, etc that one could control with motors. Also a quite fair amount of miniature buses, airplanes, and the like.
At this rate, Nora would be able to open up her museum that featured nothing but miniatures of various vehicles as she had so many of them. Yay.
She did get a few surprises though, such as the large 18-wheeler trucks meant for hauling things, which had sleeping and living compartments in them for those who were permanently long-haulers as they drove miles without end carrying the precious cargo for the companies that paid them. Somehow that also came with detachable semi-trailers, which she could bring into existence separately from the trucks now. Her power seemed to treat them the same as the metal shipping containers that she could also bring into existence.
The yachts were nice too, especially this one called "Danish Yachts Aerocruiser 35" or the cruiser "Mangusta 94". Those were boats she could finally build because they had beds and other things in there that made it qualify as a home of sorts.
Still no fucking engine in any one of the yachts or the trucks, though, because such blueprints didn't think to put those in, choosing to focus more on the luxury aspects instead of showing where the engines would go! Grr. At that point, Nora was starting to think that Taylor was right… maybe the settlers were the ones who were meant to install the engines in those machines and not her.
That, or it was more likely that the people who had made the blueprints hadn't thought to put in an engine graphic where it would go because they thought it should be common knowledge for everyone out there where the engine was located. And of course, they couldn't possibly know of or take into account Nora's power that needed exact details of everything even where the engine was, for it to make a functional vehicle. Considering that her power could make engines, as evidenced by the train section.
The train section was a mixed bag of surprises, as it had some blueprints of various train engines Nora could make, but they were rather old-fashioned in that they were coal-powered or diesel-powered…which her planet hadn't had for decades. The steam ones did seem promising though, as they could easily use dirty water and firewood for that? The cabs were also interesting, as they had the actual blueprints of passenger cabs with beds (sleep-wagons) and other living spaces inside them. Even a few Double-Decker ones at that! That would be nice for giving that train to Nuka-world the serious overhaul it needed so badly.
The weapons section… She had gone in not expecting much, but once again was pleasantly surprised to find a few actual construction plans showing how to put those guns together… which seemed to have "unlocked" a few gun mods for her according to her power.
There were also those massive cannon-like weapons you had to bolt into the ground, (such as the '15cm SIG 33 Schweres Infanterie Geschütz 33'), which could be built with her settlement powers which were just great. She knew the minutemen would love this. However, It was getting tedious having to filter through all the crap to find which ones worked with her power.
She even managed to unlock a few musical instruments on this site, which seemed random? It was all mostly guitars and lutes though, although she did get a piano and a drum set as well.
She was finally done combing through the blueprints site and was about to start searching for more plans elsewhere on the internet like Taylor had shown her how to when she finally let out such a massive yawn that she realized how tired she was. She blinked, how could she have gotten this tired when it was only…..?
Oh. Nora realized why soon as she looked around and looked at the time. 11:30 at night, and it was nearly midnight already.
Time had flown by faster than she had thought because it was already dark outside. And very late, judging by the digital clocks. She had spent hours upon hours just browsing the blueprint site since there had been so many to go through and she couldn't filter the images at all because the site didn't seem capable of telling the difference between reference pictures for hobbyists and actual blueprints showing the insides of something.
The others had already gone off to do their own thing and were already sleeping, having left Nora alone to do her browsing once Taylor was sure that Nora got the hang of internet browsing and knew to sit close to a charging port so that the phone's battery wouldn't die.
… She supposed she should get to sleep too. But it wouldn't hurt if she threw down a bed here and relaxed while browsing, right? Browsing blueprints until she fell asleep seemed like a pleasant thing to happen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the morning she was woken up when people started moving around in the kitchen and were getting ready for the day.
During the night, the phone had slipped out of her hand when she fell asleep and was currently lying on the floor with the charger still attached although it had gotten unplugged from the wall socket.
Nora picked it up and noted that it was now at 60% power when she turned it back on. She could only shake her head. Compared to her pip-boy, a phone was kind of inconvenient, save for its' near-magical ability to browse the internet and make calls without requiring a landline. A pip-boy didn't need to be recharged like this constantly, after all!
But it did give her ideas for a new type of pip-boy… a more sleek, futuristic one that not only allowed you to listen to the radio but to make calls to other people over long distances, as well as browse an online database and forum that people could use to communicate with each other. The inventory system was going to be a problem though, as it couldn't possibly have the same dimensional space storage that her current pip-boy did.
Unless… the tinkers of this world found a way to crack the inventory storage system problem? Maybe she could talk to Armsmaster and the others about her idea on how to make this new modern pip-boy idea more feasible in the long run.
She was snapped out of her thoughts as she walked into the kitchen to find Shaun asking Taylor, "Your dad says you have to go to school now? That sounds so boring!"
Taylor just sighed as she looked down at her bowl of cereal. "At least I seem to be going to Arcadia if I pass the tests there? I hear it's an excellent school and they don't tolerate bullying of any kind there."
Nora smiled wryly as she sat down. "That's the price you get for wanting to return to your normal life, I suppose. What are all the schools here like?"
Taylor took a few bites of her cereal and swallowed before answering. "There's Clarendon Middle and High School, which's all on the same...campus? I think that's the right word. The middle school building is bigger than the high school one there, so usually most students get offloaded to other schools here once they reach high school age because they typically don't have enough room for older students. They're pretty middle of the ground-- not the greatest but not also bad at all. Then there are the other high schools where all the students often get offloaded depending on whether the parents can afford it or not. Immaculata High is where all the rich snobs like to send their kids, and it's a private Christian school that makes their kids wear ugly uniforms… at least in my opinion anyway. Arcadia has a reputation for being a good school as I said before. Winslow…"
Taylor scoffed loudly before shoveling some more cereal in her mouth. She then mumbled while she chewed, "Well….. Winslow. It's got a negative reputation for good reason. And not just because of what happened to me. It's full of gangs and drug trafficking behind the scenes. The teachers willingly turn a blind eye to violence and things like that. Looking back at it, I can't honestly believe I gave up going to Arcadia the first time around just to be with Emma knowing what I do now. Even if Emma hadn't betrayed me, I think I would've still regretted my decision the first time I realized that all those tales about Winslow weren't exaggerated at all. Had Emma had stayed my best friend forever, it still wouldn't have been worth it at all."
Nora nodded. "What about the grade schools? First grade to sixth grade? Somewhere Shaun could go visit for a while?"
Shaun's head jerked upwards at this, as he had been eating his cereal. "Mom? I don't want to go to school!"
Nora smiled as she reached out to ruffle her son's hair. "I know you don't. But we're still in talks with the PRT on where we can build a mega-teleporter similar to the Trinity Tower back home. So we'll be stuck here for a while. Because of that, I'd like you to go see what a normal pre-war school is like, and it may do you some good to interact with kids your age."
Shaun stared at his mom, and then said, "You do realize I'm technically older than most kids in the grade schools here, right? Not to mention most kids I haven't gotten along with. Sally was different because she was almost as old as you but she was more relatable to me, for obvious reasons."
Nora looked annoyed at the reminder that Shaun's actual age was ambiguous, and that not even Shaun himself was sure how old he actually was due to memory manipulations they did on him in the institute. But since he was immortal, he might very well be older than an actual 10-year-old.
Taylor hid her amused smile behind her hand, before composing herself so that she could speak up. "Maybe Shaun could come to Arcadia with me? it's also a school known for protecting parahuman kids' privacy… so it would be more reasonable to send him there considering that everyone knows that he's a parahuman. It'd be safer, maybe? You should talk to the PRT about that, see what they think."
Nora mulled this over and then nodded. "That probably would be best."
"I still don't want to go to school," Shaun muttered.
Taylor decided to change the subject. "So, did you find anything you liked on the internet, Nora? I noticed you were up for a very long time last night."
Nora perked up at that. "Oh yeah. When I stopped going to that blueprints site you found me, I finally found another site that at least had the decency to highlight where the engines were on their blueprints! I now have a whole fleet of historical working ships."
It had been a maritime website that featured a lot of history about different ancient warships, as well as showing the actual blueprints and the insides of ships. She now had a small collection of steam-powered warships from the 1800s, all the way up to the 1900s with Iowa-class battleships, more specifically one that was called the "USS MISSOURI". The last one didn't run on steam entirely, but rather on four geared "General Electric" turbines.
There had been far more ships on that website, but Nora had nodded off reading about the USS Missouri and it had been the end of that.
Not to mention, her power kept on telling that the more advanced and latest ships she had seen on there would take a shitload of metals, far more than she currently had in her pocket dimension. Whereas the less advanced steam-powered warships would take a combination of both wood and metal and would be built easier.
It might've been a sign that she needed to stop there, before she came across something that her power wouldn't have been able to build, despite being able to read it, due to it needing way too many resources than her power could humanly give it. Nora didn't even think she could hold that much metal in her pocket dimension, so other people would need to have to port over a thousand sheets of metal over to her…. Which wasn't currently possible, but could be in the future?
At any rate, she was satisfied enough right now, although she'd come back to browsing the net for more blueprints later on.
Taylor nodded approvingly. "Nice. I would've thought you would go for houseboats, but I can see how having something like that would be more useful."
Nora paused at that but then shook her head as she handed Taylor her phone back. "Maybe later on. Besides, I don't think you can travel the ocean on houseboats… I think they were designed to travel by rivers instead. And, well…. I'm not sure how many rivers survived all those years? I'd have to check first."
"Oh yeah, good point. No use for houseboats in a dry nuclear wasteland." Taylor said, after taking her phone back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--A week later--
Taylor sighed as the makeup artist was touching up her face so that she'd look presentable enough for TV.
The reporters had been too persistent, and they couldn't hang out at Kurt and Lacey's house forever in an attempt to avoid the press… mainly because the reporters would eventually find out where they were staying anyways.
So, she had gone to the PRT to ask for advice on what to do about this problem, and they had told her that typically to get the reporters off your back you had to choose one reporter to pick from and then do an interview with them. Preferably on TV, so that they couldn't take your words out of context too much. There would still be networks that would try that by cutting up the TV clips, but then one could always release the full video online showing the full context and expose the networks as the frauds they were.
And the PRT of course had a few favorite news channels they liked to use at times like this...and had recommended that she go on one of them as they felt that the news channel would be mostly fair and not throw Taylor too many curveballs.
So now she was going to be a guest star on one of those Sunday morning interviews and news shows in the same vein as "Face the Nation". it wasn't something that she or her dad watched much, but it was a local one called the Daily Brocktonite (Gazette), which was also the name of the local newspaper that the company ran.
The makeup artist smiled and then stood away, looking satisfied. "Great. You're all ready to go."
Taylor let out a weak smile. "Great."
The truth was, she didn't feel ready at all. She hadn't practiced on what to say and they hadn't given her much in the way of a script so that she would know what questions she was going to be asked. Instead, she had been coached on what to say if certain curveballs were thrown her way, but otherwise, she had no idea what was coming up ahead. So yeah, this was nerve-racking.
She got up and then stood by backstage, waiting until the news hosts were ready to make their introduction, and gulped slightly when she saw that there was a live studio audience out there when she peeked outside.
The hosts finally made their introduction, talking about how they were going to be interviewing Taylor Hebert today, and Taylor took a deep breath before stepping outside, to loud applause.
She then sat down stiffly next to two women… an elderly-looking one and one fairly young attractive blonde woman.
The Elderly one went by Kira Tuxbury, and she had been in the news game for the longest time ever. The youngest one was Clarissa Dittmer.
Kira smiled at her warmly, in that grandmotherly way. "Thank you for joining us today, Taylor. Everyone's been quite eager to get your side of the story lately."
Taylor smiled nervously. "No, thank you for having me today. To tell you the truth, I still don't quite understand why everyone's so interested in me. I'm just a normal girl, after all."
Clarissa let out a polite laugh at this. "A normal girl who went through a series of very unusual and newsworthy events, I'd say."
"Well, that is true I suppose," Taylor admitted.
"First up, we want to ask you about the events leading up to what the public has been labeling the Winslow Incident if that's okay. If it is too upsetting or traumatizing to you to talk about it then we can move on. Alright?" Kira smiled a kindly, grandmotherly smile once again.
Taylor had to admit, Kira was quite good at this calming grandmother act… probably how she got so many interviewees to open up and why they kept her on despite her senior age.
She sighed. "No, that's alright. I suppose everyone does deserve to know my side of the story so that they can understand what went on. What would you like to know about?"
Clarissa then asked, "Is it true that one of the main tormentors used to be your best friend in the past?"
Oooh. they certainly weren't holding back.
Taylor took a deep breath and nodded. "Emma Barnes. Yes. She was so much more than just that, though. I suppose it's why it hurts so much."
Clarissa's eyes took on an interested glint. "Oh? Do you mean to tell me that your relationship was much closer than everyone thought? That it was romantic?"
Taylor was about to correct her, but then thought better of it. Actually… maybe she could mess with Emma this way, get some payback. Emma had constantly trash-talked her and made up outrageous rumors about her regularly. So if Taylor was to make her look like a crazy Ex who couldn't just get over her, that was fair, right? And knowing the media, they loved it when things got juicy and salacious.
She had that realization in a split second, so she was able to answer smoothly without pausing too much to think about it. She could even say the complete truth but word it most misleadingly.
"Kinda? Our relationship was complicated. Our two families were very close together, so to any outsiders, they'd say we were close like actual sisters. And a time, it was like that. But then Emma talked about us marrying someday once. Her wedding plans for the two of us were very extremely detailed, which I suppose was a red flag in itself. She wanted to keep it a secret from the public because there were the Nazis to consider, and she was also worried over how her father would react. Aunt Zoe and my mom would've been okay with the idea of us being together… in fact, I think they already suspected for a long time because they'd constantly joke about it, but not in a malicious way. Her father Alan, on the other hand, was always more on the conservative side so I honestly don't know how he would've reacted. So maybe Emma was right to hide that from him. And I don't think Zoe ever joked about our wedding in front of Alan, now that I think of it."
The funny thing, most of that was even true! Emma and Taylor had been like seven years old though when they talked about marrying each other and then talked in detail for weeks on end on what the wedding should be like. But that had been mainly because they thought boys had cooties, and it had been back then that Legend had come out of the closet and admitted to being married to a man. Which Taylor and Emma had thought was the best idea ever, because then boys and girls couldn't give each other cooties this way.
Zoe and her mom had joked about that for years, talking about how they were saving up a fund for the future because they knew that both Emma and Taylor would both be Bridezillas who wanted an expensive wedding. They hadn't been that serious about it.
Taylor smiled sadly. "The truth was, I didn't mind the idea too much and had initially agreed. But, what I didn't know at the time was the fact my sexual orientation was very much different than hers and so I couldn't meet all of her needs as she wanted. Recently, I discovered that there was a word for what I was. Demisexual, which is in the gray-ace spectrum of sexuality."
Kira wrinkled her forehead. "I'm not familiar with that term."
"It means that I quite literally do not feel sexual attraction to anybody, no matter how pretty they are, unless I have a strong emotional bond with them. Which I had with Emma. But, It also means that I can have a very low sex drive. A lot of people talk about how they like to wait a while until they have sex with somebody while dating. For most, this typically means no sex until the fourth or fifth date. For me? It'd mean a full year of dating before I finally found them so sexually attractive that I wanted to do the deed with them, I suppose." Taylor explained.
She had gotten around to searching around on the internet about her relationship issues, and had recently discovered that word. Taylor had to admit it, it felt so nice to finally find out that there was a word for it. Some of the things she said were slightly a lie though. She did feel some attraction to the muscular form on both men and women, but others didn't need to know that. She was also grossly stretching the time she'd need to become sexually attracted, but she needed to drive the point home here.
Taylor then sighed sadly. "Even before we broke up, Emma was often paranoid that others would take me away from her. Looking back on it, she probably realized that I wasn't one hundred percent gay, but I don't think she realized that my low sex drive wasn't because I didn't love her or desire her. I did love her… but in the long run, I think we were both sexually incompatible despite our strong bond. She... took it poorly when I told her that maybe we should, you know, explore other options out there to see what was right for the two of us. That it was too early to be planning our wedding when we were both too young to know what we wanted and needed. She became a different person completely when I came back from summer camp, and It was then she had this new black girlfriend."
Kira nodded in understanding, while Clarissa listened with a strong rapt expression on her face.
Kira then asked for clarification, "Sophia Hess, I assume?"
Taylor nodded back. "That's right. Now, to be fair here, I'm still not sure if they were actual *girlfriends* or platonic girlfriends. But Emma was pretty good at keeping things on the low-down, and it would've been dangerous for a black girl to be both black and gay in a city like this one. So they couldn't be out and proud anyways."
Clarissa then leaned towards her. "Can you tell us what it was like when you first got back from camp? Just so we understand how the bullying started."
Taylor nodded again. "Sure. When I got back from summer camp, I had gone over to Emma to give her a bracelet that I had made for her… mainly because I hoped that we could still be friends and sisters in name, despite things not working out for us. I liked the emotional bond we had, even if I couldn't be what she needed or wanted. Looking back on it, I realize I was naive and foolish. I mean, it's extremely rare for exes to be good friends with each other, and for a good reason. That was when Emma told me to get lost, that she didn't want to see me again. That's when Sophia shoved me down to the ground and told me that Emma was too good for me, that I was too much of a loser. I was dejected, but I left at the time thinking that was the end of our relationship completely… as friends, as sisters, and more. I figured that would be the last time Emma and I would ever interact, and that we wouldn't see each other again."
Kira raised her eyebrows. "But they clearly didn't, if the reports and other information we got were accurate."
Taylor shook her head. "It was so strange. I was ready to move on and distance myself from her so that she could settle into a new relationship once I realized that we couldn't go back to being soul-sisters. But… she just kept on fixating on me for some reason. Looking back at it, it annoys me deeply because clearly, she wasn't ready to move on from me although she told me that she wanted nothing to do with me. Otherwise, how do you explain the fact that she was so thoroughly fixated on making my life a living hell? or the fact that she went out of her way to ensure that I wouldn't be able to form friendships with anybody in school, and kept me isolated? She didn't want me to be with anybody else."
Kira and Clarrisa both nodded to indicate that it made perfect sense to them.
Clarrisa then remarked, "Indeed, I did find it strange how Emma and Sophia were so thoroughly determined in cutting you off from having any friends. A lot of things make sense now that you've explained the relationship between you two."
Internally Taylor smirked. There, she had successfully made Emma look like a crazy ex-girlfriend. Let's have Emma deal with all the false nasty rumors about herself for a change!
Her revenge was complete.
Plus this way, nobody would no longer believe any negative thing Emma had to say about Taylor anymore if they didn't already stop believing her after she got exposed for the bitch she was. After all, she was the crazy ex-girlfriend now.
Kira frowned. "But what about the third girl, Madison?"
Taylor blinked, and then said in a very dismissive tone of voice, "Oh, her? I think she's a social climber and a kiss-ass. Sophia and Emma worked very hard to cultivate their popularity at school, and they were the top dogs at school so a lot of girls kissed their asses to get ahead, and Madison happened to be one of them. Honestly, Madison's bullying attempts most of the time were often very weak and lackluster compared to Sophia and Emma. You could tell that she was only doing it to become popular at school, rather than out of real hatred for me. If Sophia and Emma told her to sit on the floor and bark like a dog, she'd do it if it meant that she could be popular forever. That was the kind of girl she was… just one of their lackeys."
Kira was reading something on her tablet and then said out loud. "Well. that does seem to match with the reports we've been given."
Taylor then asked, "Can we please talk about something? Truthfully, I'm just a tad sick and tired of how everything always has to be about Emma. She always made everything be all about her, you see. That was one of the few traits I never really liked about her, and to be honest, I'm so over her already."
Clarissa nodded. "But of course! So can you tell us some more about your adventures in Earth Gimel? You did give a brief rundown during the PRT press conference, but the details were lacking! What was your most exciting moment?"
Taylor smiled at that. "Oh, that one's easy. It would have to be when we had to hijack this train that a large group of criminals was using to traffick people that they had kidnapped straight off the streets…."
With that, she went on to explain how that happened, and what happened when she was moving from train cab to cab…
Both the women and the studio audience listened raptly while Taylor described how scary some parts had been, especially when they were moving on top of a speeding train and were in danger of being blown off by the strong winds or being shot by the raiders who were trying to prevent them from taking control of the train.
Taylor was startled slightly when the audience laughed at the part where Taylor complained how combat on top of a speeding train was nothing like it was in the movies, that it was far more awkward and clumsier to do in real life because everyone moved like they were all drunk. That Nick had been the only one to look cool because he cheated by not having a human body.
She had been so focused on both the interviewers in an attempt to get over her stage fright that she forgot that the studio audience was there.
She cleared her throat. "That wasn't the worst part though. That came when we finally reached the main engine…"
With that, she continued to tell the rest of the tale.
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A/N: I've always had it in my head that Taylor should get some kind of revenge on Emma for everything she did. I think this feels sufficient enough, don't you? It feels like something a teenage girl would come up with. I did think of doing something more physical, like having Taylor beat her up, but…. That felt too edge-lordy and stupid?
This way is still very petty as hell… but sometimes petty stuff can feel satisfying.
maritime.org
www.the-blueprints.com
useenglishwords.com
en.wikipedia.org
