Interlude - Rank and File (part 4, temporary threadmark)
- Location
- California
I don't really feel satisfied with this one, but it's taken months and been chopped up and revised repeatedly, so fuck it. This has always been a 1st/1.5th draft fic anyway.
Sufficiently Advanced Technology - Temporary Storage
[personal narrative][keep for teasing/blackmail potential][extrapolation level v11][tattletale]
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
[personal narrative][keep for teasing/blackmail potential][extrapolation level v11][tattletale]
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
She walked into the Contact headquarters without stopping to stare at the reflection of the burning city on the shimmering glass wall.
A receptionist - black male, minor (16-17?), prescription glasses, second-hand sky blue dress shirt a bit too small at the shoulders, Contact logo on HUD headset - waved to her with distracted enthusiasm. "I can help you here, miss. My name's LeShawn. Are you in danger?" He nodded at the outside, aware but not afraid. He had to have some experience with the defenses of the building - or undue faith in them.
She slid smoothly onto the stool for visitors at the front desk - dang, comfy - and gave a half-strength charming smile. "I'm okay, thanks for asking. It's super weird, I know, but I got this alert?" She held out her shield terminal. 4:30 PM: Contact Orientation.
"Wow. That has to be an error. And you came in?" A not very well-hidden skeptical look, conveying a little of his disbelief at how casual she was able to treat her own safety, and his eyes couldn't help flickering over to the other people in the lobby, over twenty people mostly in family groups, clustered around their recovered belongings, filling the lobby with the smell of smoke despite the best efforts of the air filters. She buried the bitter smile she wanted to offer in return. She was trying to be judged by her appearance right now. She wouldn't have been seen dead in the fuzzy boots if she didn't need to give off the air-headed party girl vibe.
"Well, it kept buzzing, and I wondered if something was off with the terminal." She had, for a few seconds, until it had clicked. She channeled that innocuousness, and felt a bit dirty. "Didn't want to have a shield that wasn't working, in all this…"
"Well, let me see…" He rolled his fingers across a light grid projected from inside the desk. That was custom made. Contact had their own computer systems now. Probably using the same extremely quirky programming language the terminals used. She tried to ignore that. It had been attention-grabbing, but needed far too much investment, too many concepts to learn, and the community already investigating it didn't know much more. It did amuse her that the people doing the best job of looking into Contact's unique computer design were connecting over Contact's social media. Another of those coincidences that felt too targeted. Like this meeting. "Uh. Wow. F're- for real? Just a moment, please." He tapped his headset, and she flashed a quick, patience-sharing smile. "Hey, can you confirm something- yeah, conference two? Seriously? Oh. Oh." His eyes widened a bit, darted to her, were pulled back to his screen. "Yeah, sure. Thanks." He pulled himself back up to customer service mode in record time. "Well, miss, your terminal should be working just fine. We can reschedule, but since you're already here, it does look like you were scheduled for orientation. With Orbital." He really did try to drop that last part in like he wasn't insanely curious to know what possible reason the biggest name in Brockton Bay Contact had for wanting to see her personally. But he was a teenager, it wasn't hard to read him.
"Wow," she said, affecting the faked surprise, genuine interest, and half-real awe that she figured she should have. "Yeah, okay."
All she had to do after that was keep her mouth shut for another thirteen minutes, which was honestly about as hard as the rest had been.
Conference room two was nice, about what you'd expect from a mid-budget hotel, given Contact's particular twists of decoration and design. Aspirational. Human creations, primarily local, with cultural ties from Thailand, Ireland, Spain-
Not helpful. Water is from bay, desalinated via-
No. She understood Contact's aesthetic by now. The eco-science hippie style was a lot more impressive when it could ward off Nazis and dragons, sure, but it wasn't that deep.
"You might want to save your energy." Honestly, even Orbital's surprise entry was - okay, fine, she could admit (to herself) that she had fucked up here, become distracted. And that Orbital had made a couple of surprising moves.
Firstly, for an 'orientation' with Orbital, this looked an awful lot like a meeting with Taylor Hebert. She wasn't in costume, and she was pulling off the tank top and skinny jeans look even out of season. It was the poise, an impression of absolute balance and confidence, helped by the casual enjoyment at the corners of her eyes. Not bothered by extreme temperatures; barely sweats, bio-regulation; clothing is newly manufactured within the last 72 hours. An intentional fashion decision, obviously, but to put her off-guard or to try to relax her? What would casualness signify here, on top of the current layer of 'I know you know I know you know'?
Secondly, who the hell was that? The second person had immediately stalked over to the least-lit corner of the room and hunched against the wall, twitching a finger or leg covered by dark grey bodysuit every few seconds, their golden-lensed, helmeted gaze completely locked on her.
Insufficient data. Visual interference. Auditory interference. Magnetosphere interference.
S̶̸̵̸̵̵̵̶̶̷̶̶̵̴̵̴̡̢̧̧̢̨̨̨̢̧̨̢̢̨̛̛̛̛͈̗͖͚̺̞͍̣͚̝̮̖̲̪̖̦͓̙͎̰̻̬̲̳̼͎̰̳͚͚͚͚͚̬̩̞̘͙͙͇̦̥͚̮͕̫͕̘̪̜̫͙͙͈͚̲̪͉̖̺̼̲̰̭͔͋͗́͛̀̒̐̌̄͊̀͋͐̏̏̌͂̃̀͛̈́͐̾̄̈̂̈̅͐͊́͋͂̅̓̊̎̓̅͋̅̀̎̑̏́̓̔̈́̈͑̔̈́̂̉̈́͑̉̐̉̌͗̒̀̄̒̽̅̓̋̈́͌͐͑̈̅̈̈́̋̎̌̂̕̕͘̚̚̚͘͠͠͝͠͝ͅḩ̸̵̷̷̶̵̴̶̸̷̧̧̨̛̤͎̞̞͉̹̻̮͔̙̜͍͈͉̲̫̮̠̲̟͔̹̰̼͈̠̜͕̟͖͎̞̙̮̦͖͇̣̠̹̪̜͕̠̟͙̂͒̈́̈́͐͆́̅̄͑͗͒̎̿̊̓̋́̿͆̓̋͊̑̈́͗̊͊̃͗̃̃̂͊̐̓͛͂̔̕͘͝ͅa̴̶̷̸̴̷̸̸̸̸̷̶̴̵̷̶̡̢̨̨̨̛̛̮̳̝͕͎̲͓͚̳̩̹̠̮͉̥̮̯̬̫̞̙̱̠̖̝̫̦̦̘̩̪͖͍̫̫͈̯̘̮̟̗͚̝͎̘͙̣̲̘̼̬̗͚̻̯̼̜̲̣̘̼̼̳͎͍̯̞͓̭̥̻͈̦̩̯̜͕̝͓͋̀͂̆̋͛̒̂͆͂̇͋͆͌̓̋̑̇̔̎͑͒͐̈́͂̂͌̈́̎̈́̒͊̒̇̉̈́̈̍͌͒̂̾͌̎͌͛̑́̈́͆̂̈́̈̂͛͊͒͊̑͘͘̚͘͜͜͝͠͝͝͝ͅr̴̶̷̵̶̷̵̵̡̡̢̨̛̛̘̲͍͈̣͇̪̞̲̝͙̲͓̣̟̗̱̘̞̫͍̭̞̰͇̗̲͕̮͙̟̹̅͐̂͆̎̾̾͑̃́̆̈́̔̊͛͆̄͂͌̐͛̇͐̆̔̊̾̍̈́̎̆͗́͐̈̄͂̍́͂̽͒̌̅̕̕͜͠͝͝͠͠ͅd̶̴̶̶̷̴̡̨̧̧̡̼͍͇̥̻͍̰̤̬͔̩͚͚͍͖̬̭̝̻͛̔̑̑̐͊̆̌̓̐̏̅̋͂̀̔͋̊͋̄̽̀͂̿̈̅̕̚̚͘͜͜͜͝͝͝͠͝ͅ interference.
Second order deductions: anonymity : familiarity. Self : multiplicity. Native : alien.
The rising headache was made worse by Taylor humming in sympathy. "Hi. It might help if you focused on me. So, Lisa Wilbourne?"
"That's me," she answered. Firmly. Thankfully, Taylor nodded, and she didn't need her power to stop worrying about 'Tattletale' or 'Sarah' coming up. It would have been utterly uncharacteristic hypocrisy for Contact to deny her right to her own name. Her eyes couldn't help a momentary jump to the unintroduced observer but - no, fine. They still wanted to fuck with her, obviously. She'd expected that. Signing up for Contact had been her nice casual serve into mid-court, and they'd returned it with a bit of spin - but the game was far from over.
"Thanks for coming to orientation! I know it can't have been easy, especially in the middle of all this, but we appreciate the substantial interest you're demonstrating!" Taylor's smile and body language, including the idle wave at the gang warfare distantly visible through the conference room's glass wall, weren't quite manic, but stretched and animated considerably past her very calm, regulated behavior as Orbital.
Has been anticipating this. Knows you. Likes you. Is wary of you. Wants to provoke you. Testing your ethical/emotional foundation. Testing your knowledge. Testing your composure.
They thought this was an audition? Fine. That just meant they were on the wrong side of the court.
Second order deduction: testing observer's reaction to you owing to prior relationship.
Okay, the spin was still a little unknown, but that didn't keep her from getting in position.
Lisa leaned in, clasping her hands together politely on the table and smirking only a little. "Well, you did stir up a lot of chaos today. Releasing the identities of every single Empire cape and hundreds of sympathizers and donators while they're fighting the PRT - using new weapons you gave them?" She glanced at her Contact device, briefly but meaningfully. "Interesting moves for the big 'open and democratic' alternative to the Protectorate."
Taylor's grin just expanded until it seemed to fill her face. Aware of her mouth as distinguishing feature, formerly self-conscious. Has edited own body. Can edit own body again. Has multiple bodies.
It was the observer that reacted more, the insect-like mask jumping to glare at Taylor, then tilting up, an almost theatrically exaggerated gesture of contemplation.
Second order deduction: lacking a familiar emotional safety mechanism, displaying more body language than intended.
"The release was a public vote. 73% of Contact was in favor," Taylor said. The unwavering strength of her smile, shrunken down to a polite public relations expression, and the focus of her eyes on Lisa, clearly telegraphed her intent to stick with the democratic decision line. "I don't think most parahumans are aware of how little the average unempowered person likes our unwritten rules. They aren't going to tolerate special treatment for capes if they're shown how unnecessary it is."
Was Taylor threatening her identity? That seemed unlikely. Does not regard you as dangerous. Does not regard you as imperiled by loss of secrecy. That… hurt a little, but it was meant to, wasn't it? Fine, if she wanted to start upping the tempo of play, Lisa could match her.
"Do they know their own secrets aren't far behind? I haven't seen any public announcements about how you're trying to make privacy a thing of the past." Lisa wasn't sneering, but she did cock her mouth to the side just enough to add some cynical bite to it. They really did believe this shit - Taylor and her backers. Lisa didn't imagine she could just persuade them otherwise, not with how embedded that idea was in the rest of their radicalism, but she could at least jab them with the consequences of their utopianism.
"We don't step in to guide the discussion unless we have to." Her tone was still a bit condescending, but her expression had at least settled from mirthful to dramatic. "People can reason things out, especially in groups, even without your gifts." Taylor motioned with her fingers, and Lisa's device snapped on, opened a Contact-Media thread, scrolled through dense pages of discussion. Consensus is 83% in accord with your conclusions. 54% substantial approval. Hand gesture was unnecessary, command delivered via neural integration into network.
Fine. That was a faster exchange than she'd expected, jumping up several tiers of secrets and implications in one shot. They'd been holding back for her. That was insulting, but not deterring. "You have the power to keep people from murdering each other over cheating, stealing, conspiracies, but how long are you going to enforce it? Until you can change human nature? I don't know if you've shared with your friends, but we've tried that before on this planet."
After just a second to process her words and implications, Taylor burst into laughter. It wasn't a nice, cute laugh; it would be rude to call it 'cackling,' but Lisa held onto that noun in case she wanted to be rude. "This is the kind of insight your power gives you? Come in and claim aliens are behind it - which, if true, would be a reckless thing to say in the middle of our headquarters. No wonder you would have- well, nevermind that."
Backspin return; assumption, implication - she hadn't thought about her actions, she wasn't making smart choices, she didn't know as much as Taylor did about herself - she forced it down, hard, and it was hard. Play strategically, don't close to forecourt just to get hit with a passing shot. "Please. You're here to be the good guys. You're not willing to kill me."
"Is that so? Lung. Coil. The Travelers. All gone. All villains. Like you." The wry smirk was almost believable, but Taylor's slowly clenching fist was overplaying it, didn't fit her past or personality.
"Please," Lisa dragged the word out, rolling her eyes. "You don't care about that. It's obvious! The villain and hero game never mattered to you, don't start-"
"The game." The slap of Taylor's palm onto the table was loud in the insulated room, but she didn't flinch. "That's what you call it, then you duck behind its 'rules' when consequences come calling. You listen to the parasite attached to your brain, urging you to run around recreating the worst thing to happen to you. You revel in hurting others the same way you were hurt. You shield yourself behind the social conventions you lucked into, the extra value you were given by the system. How very different from your parents."
Return. Return, return, make her run, make her sweat, crush her for that. "You think I'm running from myself? What about you, Taylor? You're running from your humanity. Chopping up your personality, throwing it away, putting other parts into it, anything to avoid having to struggle through life down here with the rest of us. 'Powers' weren't enough for you?"
"You're helping to make it a struggle. Nothing can be good enough once you see the flaws, right, Lisa? You trust your power, you let it filter what you know, fill you with cynicism and spite until you can't even see the way out-" Taylor stood, she stood, she tensed-
"Stop. Both of you." The watcher's voice was modulated, dispersed, mechanical-, no, she realized as the cloud of darkness swept through the conference room, for a moment reminding her of Brian's power, before she knew it was alive, with thousands, tens of thousands of wings thrumming and echoing the words, arthropod. "Back up. Please."
The bugs avoided her and Taylor both, about six feet of gap, though they covered the watcher like a cloak. In her peripheral vision, she saw Taylor's raised fist open and drop back to her side, then rise again as she crossed her arms. "I thought we were holding off on reconnection until after the Big Event." She wasn't quite looking at the mystery cape.
"I changed my mind." The new voice, speaker unseen, was quiet, vaguely feminine, vaguely British, calm, amused, originating from a point in the air, broadcasting from - elsewhere, and leave it at that. "Your conversation wasn't proceeding in any productive direction."
Taylor Hebert started to clench her hand again, forcibly stopped herself. She bit off a grin - a sad, angry kind of thing, a sudden flash of - Lisa wasn't sure. Acceptance? Misery? Sorrow? Too much of Taylor was Orbital, the persona she'd made of herself, the person that was on the conventional media and Contact networks, the mask. Lisa had only had a glimpse of the original Taylor, and she was receding already. "I guess not. You thought it was worthy of reattaching-" A barest hint of a pause, a word not chosen - her tone smoothed out slightly, pushing down residual anger, placating. "-Skitter's power?"
"I've refined our models," the voice answered. "Your shard interface has been an excellent study, Lisa. Thank you."
She faced the point of origin of the voice and pushed down on the part of her mind that felt invaded. "Can I ask what you're doing in my head?" She expressed her indignation with a heavy dripping of sarcasm.
"Never fear, already gone, work completed, all that. A little structural alteration, to ensure your partner's interface doesn't shut your cognition or memory forming neurons off, when I mention your power is an extradimensional bio-crystalline life-form, an extrusion of the colony organism your world identifies as 'Scion,' and its long-term goals push you into conflict in a rather abysmal attempt at experimentation." The voice paused, waited for her to blink, then with a little more cheer, added, "Well, that seems to have worked out nicely! Any pain, nausea?"
"I don't feel any pain from your tampering inside my brain," she ground out. Annoyingly, it was true - more than that, accurate. She wasn't in pain at all. Her power headache was just gone.
"It's still a bit of a grey area, whose body this 'corona gemma' really belongs to, but I can assure you I didn't proceed beyond it into any of your pre-attachment mind. We only need to study your symbiont's biological function; I have a rather complete understanding of human cognition. And it would be both somewhat impolite and utterly unnecessary to intrude on your thoughts. You do tend to share what you're working through without much of a delay, Lisa." She could hear the smile in the voice, and she tried not to think of a dog snarling at itself in a mirror. Aliens could be smug, she didn't have to try to Thinker-fight aliens.
"Can we continue?" The buzzing choir of the insect controller - Skitter - was terse, flat. Shedding emotional expression via power, concerned for objectivity, bias.
"Well, maybe. But I think we shouldn't." Taylor stepped up, the bugs parted for her, and she slowly - caution for emotional distress, behavioral wounds, extreme empathy (subordination) put a hand on the other's shoulder. "You should." She leaned in close, whispered, the thrum of wings preventing Lisa from catching more than fragmented words - "deserve it." Not enough context to speculate, not that she could trust… well. She trusted that technologically, the forces behind Contact could shut down her power migraines. She didn't trust their reason for doing so, or the apparent lack of restrictions put on the change. So she held her power back - and even that seemed easier, like she could toggle a mental switch instead of constantly trying to block a faucet. There wasn't any pressure to it, any need to use it, and that only redoubled the feeling of alienation.
"I can revert most of the changes if you're truly that disturbed," the cultured voice, the other said, volume and distance now approximating hushed tones from just beside her. Only mental fatigue saved Lisa from a humiliating jump scare. "But not for a few weeks, I'm afraid. I'm trying to teach them a lesson, and reversing course is unfortunately likely to be misinterpreted."
"Them? Powers," she answered herself. Powers were alive, intelligent, had an agenda, came from Scion. At first grasp, it radiated conspiracy, implausibility, logical leaps. But she'd been recontextualizing everything she looked at for weeks. Contact was extra-terrestrial. Orbital had artificial powers. Was there an undercurrent to her thoughts, her conclusions gathered by her power? An agenda. She didn't think so, couldn't see anything, looking back. Lisa was… aware of her own failings. They were hers, thanks. Not imposed. Her power was a tool - but who let themselves just be a tool? She had - under duress. Did she have leverage on her power? "What lesson?"
"A new eco-social model." The voice paused for a moment, adopted a tone of shared secrets. "I could say that I'm fully confident you can deduct the details, given time, which is true, but I won't deny I also enjoy providing mere clues and seeing where people go with them." That was unfair. At least she spilled secrets.
Orbital and Skitter had finished their talk, or something like it. The insect master had her glove on her mask, but Orbital held her back, turning to Lisa. "Look, Lisa, I don't agree with you. Not for a minute. And you rhetorical method just rubs me the wrong way. I don't know if you'll change your mind when, or if, you see everything. I don't think we'd get along even if you do. But I'm trying to be… not a condescending bitch, to people I disagree with." Lisa wasn't sure if she could trust the moment of honest agonized uncertainty that dashed across Taylor's face, but it was a start, a data point. "I think you want in. If we're doing the wrong thing, if we're going to do the wrong thing, you know you can change it a lot better from a position of knowledge. And you're not alone in doubting."
"You want me to work with your mystery girl." It wasn't a return, the game was over. But you had to drop down gradually, to keep from getting sore.
"You're probably going to get along a lot better with her." Orbital's words brushed past her, Skitter's unmasked face occupying the whole of it.
Is Taylor Hebert. Is not Orbital. Face matches pre-empowered pictures of Taylor Hebert at 6.78% more than Orbital. Knows you, is friends with you, knows your moods and habits, knows Brian, knows Rachel, knows Alec, has bled for you, has manipulated you, you saved her life, you put her life in danger. She hadn't asked for the flood of information, just opened herself to it in confusion, and been almost overwhelmed. Her power, her symbiont, perhaps, was hungry, devouring everything it could pull out of every twitch in the other girl's face, and seemingly more - she could make logical leaps, sure, but how could she be extrapolating all this from a person's face?
They'd won and then offered a rematch. Lisa couldn't have refused if she'd wanted to.
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