I feel like if Taylor was gonna wake up and choose violence then she should NOT have contacted the PRT and provided them with the means to track her down. Just saying.
System Administrator (Worm) (AltPower!Taylor)
- Thread starter TemporaryMeasure
- Start date
- Location
- US
I get the desire to use this side of her powers, but why the hell did she disclose that she's from Brockton Bay right after contacting Armsmaster and demonstrating identical abilities? There's no need to even disclose that she's American. All it does is ensure that she gets outed to the PRT.
Wow Taylor, @'ing the whole world is not exactly subtle.
Also just due to the nature of her powers, I feel that Saint will show up soon to fight thinking she's a new spooky AI. lol
Also just due to the nature of her powers, I feel that Saint will show up soon to fight thinking she's a new spooky AI. lol
owlmessenger
Parts Guy Extraordinaire
- Location
- New York
It is a nice way to end-run the corrupt faculty and go straight to the school board to redress her grievances.
- Pronouns
- N/A
is Winged_One, just because no-one will make a connection since it is too obvious.
Hmm. Mental head space said AllSeeingEye and Winged_One were alt accounts to each other like I once saw someone say Clockblocker uses to have arguments with himself to troll PHO. Something I can easily seeing the Simurgh doing too. But I'm apparently wrong so...
- Pronouns
- N/A
Tattletale doesn't like to be in one thread with AllSeeingEye. Because no matter what, Lisa will be frustrated: either ASE is smarter than Tattletale, or other way around, Lisa will play herself for a fool. /jk
Hey, I resemble that remark.
My first language, not too surprising, was BASIC (learned it in High School). My second, self taught, was Z-80 Assembler. It turns out that when you try to write a decent term program for calling BBS systems, interpreted BASIC is nothing like fast enough, so I went to bare metal assembler programming and ANSI-Term was born. Coding low level gets easier over time, grc.com (Steve Gibson) uses it frequently.
TemporaryMeasure
Serial non-Serious Author
- Location
- your peripheral vision
I hear you, I do, but I have ~character development~ planned for our good friend Greg Veder. I'd be missing an opportunity if I didn't, given that due to the nature of the MC's powers, a lot of this will happen online.
Also, sorry for no update yet. This chapter is fighting me, and also I have been putting most of my effort into getting a job.
I created a SV account just to comment on this story. Congrats, dude. I really like it.
- Location
- Canada
I'd love to slap the stupid out of Miss Hess, but I'm not sure there'd be anything left. The girl has a truly astonishing capacity for determining the worst possible course of action, and then carrying it out in the most harmful manner possible. And by "worst" and "most harmful," I mean for everyone involved, especially herself.
I just realized Sophia is planning on ambushing a girl in a wheelchair because she feels she might be in danger if she fights back. Truly badass heroics from Shadow Stalker.
Kinsfire
Verified {Redacted}
- Location
- New Jersey
Remember that Sophia doesn't see her as someone deserving of 'heroics'. The person is prey, and therefore has reached a point where they've outlived their usefulness as a toy. Sophia comes across as a narcissistic sociopath with a solid touch of solipsistic insanity.
Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
To my mind, she comes across as a shallow teenage bully who has some shallow teenage bull$#!+ that she uses to faintly justify doing whatever she wants. I think she's a violent hedonist, rather than a true sociopath.
Antivirus 1.3
TemporaryMeasure
Serial non-Serious Author
- Location
- your peripheral vision
Hi, everyone! Sorry about the month-and-a-half hiatus, life ain't a kind place. But I'm back from the dead now, with a nice long chapter and a new story, in which Taylor dies but gets OP powers as a consolation prize. Also, it's definitely a comedy story. I promise.
In other news, I have decided to make this story less grimdork than I had planned. I've done a lot of thinking about writing, and I don't want to write either a fix-it fic or a being-taylor-is-suffering. I am aiming for taylor-has-allies-but-doesn't-lack-enemies-and-actually-struggles-or-sometimes-but-not-always fic. I hope you all can enjoy that.
In other news, I have decided to make this story less grimdork than I had planned. I've done a lot of thinking about writing, and I don't want to write either a fix-it fic or a being-taylor-is-suffering. I am aiming for taylor-has-allies-but-doesn't-lack-enemies-and-actually-struggles-or-sometimes-but-not-always fic. I hope you all can enjoy that.
Taylor Hebert
Saturday morning came and went, Lacey's friend Sherry helping me get clean and ready to face the rest of the day. Dad helped me with my PT, and I finally managed to stand up! Clinging to his arm, and he had to help lift me to actual standing, and I only managed to stay there for thirty seconds, but still! He tried to crack a joke about it, which is amazing, even though he got choked up and couldn't actually say the funny bit. I remember the last time he joked around with me – it was the morning of the crash. He shut down after that, couldn't go to work or cook or eat, almost. I resented him so much. Honestly, I still resent him. But I look at him, and that yellow-orange rough scent is getting little streaks of fluffy green in it, and I can't. Can't forget, but can't hold onto it. If he's getting better, but I'm being the problem, then we still can't be fixed. That's unacceptable.
So I make myself smile, and compliment his burnt eggs and toast-which-is-just-bread, and that warm green texture heats me up from the inside and eases the chill in my bones.
It works better than turning up the thermostat would, which we can't afford anyways. Not with 20k extra medical debt on top of the mortgage and everything else. Dad left the bills on the table by accident last night, and I snuck a look. God, I want to fix it, I want so much to fix it, and it's only three barest threads that keep the bank systems from accidentally forgetting the debts exist. I might get caught of course, since they might have hard copies somewhere – probably do, actually. I was tempted enough to log into my Webster account and go gardening in their systems, and holy hell, they still use COBOL. COBOL!
Also, I'm going to be a hero and a Hero if it kills me trying, but a bank robbery? That's not the kind of thing I want on my conscience. Not even if it's a victimless crime – no such thing, really. But still, I can't compromise my ethics like that. I don't remember who said it originally, but power corrupts, and corruption's the opposite of a Hero.
But none of that would stop me, not when Dad's getting new lines on his face late at night, punching a calculator's keys while frowning at those papers. Not when that pain, that debt, is my debt, my hospital stay, my fault.
No, I have to believe that I'll catch the school for their neglect, that we'll sue them and crush them in court. We don't have the money for a lawyer, but that just means we need such watertight evidence that someone takes it on contingency. (That's the internet's favorite bit of advice, when it comes to lawyers.) So when I catch the school, catch that psychopath Blackwell, and cleanse everything in the burning light of day, they'll pay not just pain and suffering, but medical costs as well. And it would be rather odd if when that happens, we mysteriously never incurred that debt in the first place.
So I leave it alone. It'll be okay. It'll all be fixed when I tear that psycho's world and career down around her deaf fucking ears. When I win.
That can't happen soon, though. Much as I'd like the first thing Sudo does for the world to be exposing the corruption at Winslow and the suffering of one Taylor Hebert, that would be just a little obvious, especially with the PRT soon to learn that Taylor Hebert is herself a recently triggered Thinker. No, Sudo's debut has to be something national, after which a tipoff from a 'concerned student' would bring that national scale attention down on little, evil, corrupt Winslow. And that'll take time.
Fortunately, that time can be useful. Armsmaster called on the burner at 10, like he'd said he would in the one SMS already sent to it. We'd been keeping it in a dead microwave in the basement, since you can't be too sure about trackers. (Dad's idea, he's really gotten into the secrecy thing. Keeping me safe is the most important thing in his mind, which is touching, but, well.) Anyhow, we took a little trip to the corner store to answer the planned call. Honestly, Armsmaster is maybe a little bit uptight – the call came at 10:00 to the exact second, and he barely established we were listening before he explained the procedure for a subtle entrance to the PRT building.
And that's what leads Dad and me to ask the PRT trooper just outside the HQ's side door at 3 in the afternoon about the weather.
Taylor Hebert
"Hello, have you noticed the rain recently? Shame about all the sun."
"If I were a plant, I'd love a mixture of the two."
"If you were a plant, I'd swear off of salad."
Honestly, I have no idea who comes up with these passphrases for the PRT, but I almost wish I wasn't a parahuman so I could have that job instead. It's probably the most inane thing I or Dad has ever said, and I'm sure that trooper was laughing behind his mask. If he was, though, he didn't show it, just led us up a tight staircase (a jostling mess, if you're being half carried and half pushed in a wheelchair) before knocking on a windowless door three times, and waiting.
It didn't take long before the door opened, revealing a man in six-foot-tall blue power armor, trimmed in silver, parting at the chin to reveal an impeccable beard. Armsmaster, of course, though the Director was currently out of her office to minimize risk. The Protectorate head had been very clear on that, as well as informing me that multiple government officials in other branches would be informed of this meeting, and would be conducting M/S testing on Armsmaster and "Trooper Stevens" afterwards. Wouldn't tell me who, though, only that he was absolutely certain they could be trusted. By the PRT, anyway, but I didn't trust the PRT as far as I could throw them, which wouldn't be far even if I did have any muscle on my skeletal arms.
At least I didn't look like a frog anymore? Emma loved to tell me all about how I looked, even before she inexplicably threw me away like a used tissue. It was once complimentary, but I could hardly remember those days. These days, it was whispers of my round belly, my too wide mouth, my skinny limbs. Well, at least now I don't look like that anymore. A skeleton barely shrouded in flesh, yes, but my potbelly is gone and my mouth is surrounded by fatless skin, cheeks sunken and mouth looking more thin than wide. Not a good look, no, but if I am a skeleton, then I am in Emma's and Sophia's and Blackwell's closet, and I mean to be very inconvenient.
Oops, Armsmaster is talking, I should pay some attention. "I finished sweeping this office for bugs just before you came, and disabled the three I found, only one of which we already knew about." He looks kind of embarrassed. He ought to be, that's dangerous to me. "Is there anything you need, in order to begin digging up moles?"
I can tell Dad wants to use this moment to negotiate, but I squeeze his hand to stop him. There's no need to make demands now, and I'd rather get the moles found quickly so I can be safe. Gratitude and my services for the PRT at large will let us negotiate later, but for now, I'd rather just help.
"I don't think so, sir. I'll start focusing on it now."
He nods, and I switch my attention. My extra sense, no longer ignored, almost blinds me, drowning out everything else. The world is a miasma of green and yellow and red and purple and fishy and sweet and a kaleidoscope of things that don't have words in the English language. Somehow it all seems to make sense at once despite the complexity, and by some process that seems both organic and crystalline at the same time, the organization's structure begins to form logical concepts and even words in my head.
I'd never noticed it, but every time I'd read something in my life, the words had turned from a visual stimulus into a concept in my head. That was an actual process my brain had to go through, and until now I hadn't noticed – but the words I perceived through my extra sense don't go through the same mechanism, and suddenly it was obvious. The concept of
>print(CURRENT_SYSTEM.COMMON_NAME)
identifies itself with "Parahuman Response Teams East-North-East", the words
>print(CURRENT_SYSTEM.NODE_LIST)
returns a sorted list of seemingly random numbers directly into my awareness.
So clearly, getting powers has messed with the way my brain works.
In any case, I'm not going to get much further without some way to match the IDs of the members of this organization with their actual names. Maybe… "Armsmaster, could you give me a list of names of PRT and Protectorate employees? I think it would help me figure this out faster, and definitely help you understand my answers."
He didn't respond, and I thought he was ignoring me, until I saw a piece of paper slowly sliding out of his armor's upper arm armor (there's got to be a better word for that?). Wow, he's got a printer in there? Also, no response but immediate compliance? He's disturbingly direct, but I kind of like it. Efficient, maybe.
Wait. Efficiency. The way I'm reading those concepts is… not great. Sort of a weird half-sibling of both C++ and Wyrm on opposite sides of the family. If I keep looking at the System like this, it's going to take me forever and a half to check each member of the local PRT branch. Be better if I had some way to treat it like a database instead of a class structure… maybe there's a language for that? "Hey Armsmaster – know any programming languages for database manipulation?"
It's really hard to read his facial expression when all I can see is the bottom of his face, but he seems to be just… looking at me. Did I do something wrong? Is he offended? Have I blown all this up somehow, maybe I should be less informal, or maybe I'm just unlikeable and nobody will be my friend – all of a sudden, he cracks a grin out of nowhere. I'm so lost.
"Do I? Have you heard of Object Query Language?"
I shake my head – no – and from out of either nowhere or his armor's literal ass, he pulls out an entire whiteboard, then starts projecting onto it from a tiny speck of light on his visor while writing in erasable marker from what appears to be his fingertip. Amazing. And the whole time, he's got the goofiest grin just visible from under his visor.
"Alright – so – OQL is a relational query language, kinda like Sequel – which based on your face you have also never heard of, going to have to redo these slides on the fly, so basically you have a database as part of a class structure and you want to get only parts of it based on logic rules, or edit it or whatever, so you might say something like 'SELECT Name FROM Pizzashop.Employees WHERE Salary < 30000' (he pauses to write it, somehow both hurriedly scrawled and incredibly neat, on the whiteboard) "and that would get you a list of all the names of the employees who make less than 30000 a year, in our fictional database. Wait, actually, I should ask – how much programming experience do you have?"
Yikes, he's an awful teacher. But he's so into it, I can't bring him down. And besides, just the enthusiasm puts him way ahead of anyone at Winslow. Still, though, I feel like any minute there'll be a spitball in my hair or shavings on the papers in front of me. But it's safe here, they can't get me here. I tell him I'm mostly self-taught, about my Wyrm and C++ experience, about how far I am on Project Euler. (I carefully don't tell him about the scripts I wrote for sneaking around on the internet, or my intimate knowledge of the guts of PHO. He's suddenly like a puppy, all wiggles and happy barks, but I still can't trust him – anyone – like that.)
"Alright – so – you know how class structures work?" He doesn't even wait for my nod. "Ok so basically when you have a database in your class and you want to get bits of it, you can use OQL to easily grab the bits you want. The components of the query are as follows: the 'select' clause, which you always need because it says what parts of the data are being selected and what you are doing with them, followed by the 'from' clause, which says where in the class structure you are getting the data from. Then there's a bunch of optional bits after that, to specify more things about the data…
Taylor Hebert
Alright! That should be about… done! I look up and proclaim, maybe a bit too excitedly,
"Alright, Armsmaster, I've got it done! Highlighters in different colors to show spies I'm certain of by allegiance, possible spies, non-spies that are actively detrimental to the PRT or Protectorate, and an underline for merely useless employees. Honorary mentions include some guy named Thomas Calvert who's your highest placed spy, Battery has some allegiance to an organization outside the PRT or Protectorate – although that organization seems allied with both? – and Shadow Stalker, while not a spy, is strongly detrimental to system integrity even though she's the most effective Ward at completing the system mission. Oh, and Director Piggot has very high efficacy rating but strangely low uptime, leading to an overall system utility which seems pretty low for such an important position. Any questions?"
I watch as he opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then opens it again.
His jaw hung there, loudly saying nothing.
Did I mess this up? What did I do wrong? I thought he maybe liked me?
"That's… in great detail. I am… very impressed, if this all turns out to be true."
Oh.
Now it was my turn for my jaw to flap like a flag in uncertain wind. Wait, he can see that part of my face – the mask I'm wearing doesn't cover everything. It's my old Alexandria helmet, dug out from the bottom of my closet where I put it when I was eleven. I used to have such fun, imagining I was Alexandria (my favorite of the Triumvirate) and Emma…
Emma…
What happened to the Emma who laughed and jumped around as Mouse Protector, quipping beside my stern and silent Alexandria, whose only vulnerability was giggle fits from witty lines? Had I heard her laugh, her real laugh, since that summer?
Had anyone?
Wait, I'm in front of Armsmaster, he's waiting for me to speak, I need something to say, quick quick quick! Uh, "I'm so excited to join the Wards once all these spies and traitors are gone, and I can be safe!" Yikes, I sound lame, and maybe a little insincere? I'm not actually excited, in fairness – it'll just be more high school drama – but I definitely want to join, and quickly. I just need their protection. And-
"Oh, unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen."
What the hell. What the actual hell. Just as I was starting to trust you. You pull something like this! I find my fist tightening around the papers, and I quickly roll them into a tube, text side in. You can't protect me, I won't help you!
He notices my sudden stress, and backs up a step, raises his arms.
"Wait, wait. I just mean that we can't exactly fire employees on the say-so of an anonymous thinker who we can't tell anyone exists. There are laws against that, and even if there were not, our contracts keep us from firing people without sufficient reason. So I can't promise that everyone you've marked a spy is going to get fired and/or imprisoned."
"Then why the hell should I bother giving you the list?!"
"I said wait! First of all, we will absolutely be investigating all these people. Working for a federal agency makes you subject to certain types of warrantless search, and this is an occasion for that if ever there was one. Anyone we can prove is guilty is going to jail, as the law demands. And we will definitely not let any information about your abilities get to anyone on the spy list you're providing. We will keep you safe. True information about you will be kept on secure systems – and if the infiltrations are as high level as you indicate, we can't consider any of our existing computers secure, which I will be working with Dragon to fix – and nobody except those above the rank of Commander in this branch, and our direct superiors, will have access. To be frank, you're too potentially useful to risk in any way at all."
"Stop! You just said you won't let the spies have 'information about my abilities'. Not 'information about me'. You're going to let them know I exist? WHY!"
"Owl, calm down! I'll tell you, but you need to trust me on this! You have a good power and good instincts, but you're young and your inexperience is showing. I have a great deal of experience in information security – I built my career writing many of the programs and protocols that protect identities of Protectorate capes – so trust that I know what I'm doing. Alexandria used to explain it by talking about magicians. She'd go on and on about them and their inventive tricks – she loved stage magic, made a hobby of it, I've no idea why the PR wonks didn't jump on that – and she'd explain about misdirection. A good magician, she said, hides some things from the view of the audience, but it's hard to make something invisible. So instead, you obfuscate and misdirect. The coin gets moved to the left hand right away, but you distract the audience with the right, and they never see it. People stop looking if you give them something to see.
What's more suspicious: a masked girl quietly entering a side entrance of the building, sneaking into the director's office, then leaving equally quietly, with a suspicious gap in a few schedules? Or an ordinary new Ward, joining with a mediocre power, not worth anyone's effort to investigate? That's what we'd do. You'd join the Wards, and to everybody outside their quarters and this office, you're… probably a tinker, one without obvious effects. We could pick your specialty to make any intel you produce less suspicious, too. I'd build you some gadgets to wear, and nobody would look past it. How do you feel about being a Surveillance Tinker?"
…He called me Owl. Dad used to call me little owl. I miss him. Even though he's right there, he's not. He hasn't called me little owl in… years. Since mom.
"…Owl?"
"Yes. Every new cape gets a temporary codename. I chose Owl for you, since they're natural predators of moles."
I like it.
Colin Wallis
She's a skilled listener. Most don't have that skill. I pride myself on the ability to stay silent and pay full attention. Prevailing opinion in psychology indicates that most people are planning what they will say next in any conversation. Dragon has told me that I should endeavor to be like most people in conversation, but I value listening.
Chris doesn't really listen, to my everlasting frustration. He's always thinking in five directions at once, and I can tell that when I speak to him he is barely paying attention. He could be a great tinker, if only he would focus and learn from others. But this new 'Owl', she listened to me talk about OQL for 57.8 minutes. Nobody but Dragon has ever listened to me talk about computer programming before, and it makes even her uncomfortable, though I don't know why. But Owl? Owl listened to every word, kept track of questions without dropping her attention, and asked them at appropriate moments! She didn't derail my explanation even slightly!
She did lapse into some unfortunate behavior near the end of our meeting. I had a difficult time explaining our future course of action because of it, but in the end I think she was mollified. She gave me the list, anyway – not that I couldn't get it myself from my helmet recording of her making it, but the principle stands.
Given the… depth of the mole infestation the PRT is suffering, I'll have to contact Dragon about a total overhaul of our systems. Maybe a decoy system for those we are investigating? It can be repurposed once we've rid ourselves of the spies to provide curated 'leaks' to those spies we choose to 'miss' in our purge.
Looking over the list, I have no doubt that the names therein are responsible for most of the Birdcage Transport hijackings I've had the indignity of responding to.
I'll be glad to be rid of the pests.
Emily Piggot
I turn my swivel chair (not my swivel chair) in the crappy spare office I'm using to allow me access to the filing cabinet on my right. Bending down, I wince at the sharp spasm of back pain. Back pain or organ pain? Back pain, this time. Opening it, I tuck away this month's budget report and withdraw the Youth Guard's most recent painfully polite complaint. They have a way of calling you a child slaver or your Wards child soldiers while only ever using words like 'excessive', 'time', 'danger', and 'commitment'. Honestly, why does an NGO get to dictate terms and fine a federal LEO? Since when did we give civilians access to classified documents and schedules, to employees? Why do they have so much power?
Then again, whose bright idea was it to shove a bunch of high school children into the enforcement arm of a federal military/police force? Or any arm, honestly? A bunch of dangerous, dangerously powerful, and dangerously inexperienced children calling themselves heroes and bearing the weight of the law in their uncalloused hands? And why why why do they have to be my responsibility?
A ringing. The interoffice ringtone, coming from the phone on my desk. I pick up.
"Ma'am? This is Detective Stevens, reporting in on subject Taylor Hebert as ordered. Subject has left their home and proceeded in a motor vehicle with Subject's Father along Chapel St. to Prospect, whereupon they proceeded to the PRTHQ and entered via a side entrance at 1457 hours. Subject was in a wheelchair, wearing an Alexandria Halloween mask. Subject's father likewise wore a mask, although his was a Mouse Protector brand helmet. At that point, we were unable to follow. Subject left via the same entrance at 1723 hours and proceeded along the reverse route to home, stopping at Koon Thai to pick up an oddly large dinner. Subject has not left the building again. We believed this to be important enough to tell you immediately, as this has been the subject's only departure from home except to be pushed around the block on occasion, not to mention that her destination was HQ."
I seethed.
"I see. Well done, Detective, I await your written report. A brief question: did you perhaps think it might be a good idea to tell me when the subject came to PRTHQ in the first place? Or did you judge a report after a possible security breach to be more useful?"
"…Apologies, Director. I did call when she left her house by car, as it was a departure from the norm, as well as when she entered the PRT, but you did not pick up either time. Because of that I judged it better to wait until a resumption of normal activity."
Huh, so I do have some competent agents after all. I'll have to speak kindly – can't apologize from above, of course. Why didn't I pick up? Oh right, I was busy switching offices to prepare for the arrival of that… thinker… 'Owl'… person… who came in through a side entrance…
"Thank you for the explanation, Detective. One more thing: which side entrance exactly was it?"
"Charlie three sierra, ma'am. Why?"
Damnit.
"Because this case just became your top priority. I want to know everything about her and everything she does. In particular, I want you to figure out if she has any gang connections at all, school or otherwise. I'll get you a warrant for a cable tap, should you decide you need it." Obviously, that means I'm telling you you need it. "Good evening, detective." I hang up.
I hate it when two complicated things merge into a hot mess. Maybe the information we get from Owl will resolve this? If it's mediocre, or doesn't show one gang's spies, that'll show her hand – no gang would burn all of its assets in a LEO just to ingratiate one more, no matter how highly placed. On the other hand, if she reveals moles from every gang, and investigation validates her intel, that would be a pretty clear indicator that Sophia Fucking Hess is selling me a bridge she doesn't own. Again.
But I can't take the chance that she isn't.
I hate this god damn Wards program. Every problem I have, I swear.
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this is really starting to pick up, looking forwards to seeing Coils confusion lol.
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ooh, competent Piggot, I like it.
- Location
- I am located here.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I love every story where Sophia is hoist in her own petard, and this story is clearly going that direction!
Crazael
Rehydrated Demon King
- Location
- Lost to the vagaries of time.
Well, this was interesting. Though the POV changes threw me for a bit and it took me a bit to realize I wasn't reading Taylor's POV anymore.
"hoist by her own petard". A "petard" was a primitive explosive charge meant to take down castle walls and were notoriously unstable and likely to kill the user if used improperly, "hoisting" them into the air when they explode prematurely. Sorry. It's a bit of a pet peeve when people get this wrong.