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Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.
Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.
She sets out.
She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -
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imeanforever
wormcan
They test it on Bakuda. In case it somehow ends with canceling all existing orders, she's the least immediately dangerous.
"We'll need you to give an order. Maybe any time I say go in the next five minutes, she is to raise her right hand and not her left. That way the order is coming from before she's affected by the power."
"We'll need you to give an order. Maybe any time I say go in the next five minutes, she is to raise her right hand and not her left. That way the order is coming from before she's affected by the power."
imeanforever
"All right."
To Bakuda: "Over the next five minutes, when the Director says 'go', raise your right hand, and keep your left down, for one second."
To Bakuda: "Over the next five minutes, when the Director says 'go', raise your right hand, and keep your left down, for one second."
wormcan
To the visiting capes: "Remember not to mention any real names, or cape names if they share any syllables. If you're unsure, don't use it at all."
imeanforever
"Hello," Promise remarks to the capes who aren't the first to be tested. "I hope you don't mind that I hope you can't get Bakuda to do anything."
wormcan
"Why not?" asks Cape #1. "It's not just a case of bragging rights, or they wouldn't have asked me to come out here."
imeanforever
"If they can be convinced I'm secure enough, I'm a Birdcage alternative, or part of one."
imeanforever
"The problem is that I'm a single point of failure, but if I just tell someone not to use their power, and then capes like, well, you three, can't counteract that, they're as easy to contain as any normal mortal. Frankly I'd prefer a model where I also told them not to commit particularly egregious crimes and then they could go do whatever else it is mortals like to do all day instead, but involved parties seem very set on this whole 'prison' concept."
wormcan
The other cape shrugs. "Maybe they think there'd inevitably be holes in the orders and don't want to upset what they've got."
#3 is still staring. "And there's a chance they'd go for this?"
#3 is still staring. "And there's a chance they'd go for this?"
imeanforever
"Only if they want me to keep catching supervillains, but they seem to want that. I'm seeing if the Director will keep her word to get Bakuda sent somewhere less obviously hellish than the Birdcage. Lung and Oni Lee may be a lost cause, it probably depends."
wormcan
"But they said Bakuda bombed this city. You'd do that even though she deserves it if anyone does?"
Capes numbers one and two switch out, the returning one reporting that Promise's orders overrode his completely.
Capes numbers one and two switch out, the returning one reporting that Promise's orders overrode his completely.
imeanforever
"Oh, the fact that she's really a terrible person means that I don't object much to using her for this experiment, but the point is to make sure she doesn't bomb any more cities, and anything to upset her beyond that seems... I'm not sure how to describe it. Objectionable, anyway."
wormcan
"And you can have a chance at keeping them out of the Birdcage because you know their names?"
imeanforever
"Sort of. It helps that I also have other powers they want access to and their ability to bribe me will sharply drop off if they can't accommodate my preference for decently treating people. I don't know what this will look like long-term - in particular, if I can be compromised by Masters... which should probably be gently tested as long as you're here... solving this problem will also involve having some way to keep me effectively away from any prisoners whose names I have once I've told them not to use their powers et cetera."
wormcan
It's #3's turn to hopefully have no effect. She goes in to the room with Bakuda and starts singing.
imeanforever
"Is that Canary?"
"Yes," says Sarkany, who is loitering nearby.
"How did you get her to agree to help?"
"She's hoping it will reflect well on her at her trial."
"The trial where someone decides if an entertainer whose power happens to admit of accidents should be sent to the Birdcage for having one. That puts her remarks in context."
wormcan
Canary runs out of the room, almost crying. She takes a deep breath and declaims "NOTHING HAPPENED YOUR POWER WORKED MY NAME IS PAIGE MCABEE YOU'VE GOT TO HELP ME"
imeanforever
There is a very sudden drop in the attention-getting-ness of those words when the syllable "Paige" escapes Canary's mouth.
"Shut. Up." First order of business. "How many hours does your power take to wear off, hold up fingers."
imeanforever
"Okay. Is it still affecting anyone else in the room? If I let you talk will they be unduly affected?"
wormcan
Headshake.
The PRT uniforms and the capes were affected enough to be paying unusual amounts of attention to Paige's voice, but hadn't been in the completely suggestible state. And Canary's power appeared to have no effect at all on Sarkany.
The PRT uniforms and the capes were affected enough to be paying unusual amounts of attention to Paige's voice, but hadn't been in the completely suggestible state. And Canary's power appeared to have no effect at all on Sarkany.