"I'll tell her."

And with that they go to bed.

Boxing Day is unexciting except for the discovery that the body parts that looked chewed on weren't actually chewed on but rather made look that way artificially, so the Siberian's ruled out. The Protectorate however is pretty sure the Skinners will want to do something for New Year so everyone's at the ready then, patrols are spread out and redoubled, and no one's given the day off. So of course nothing whatsoever happens.

It does happen the next day, though.

Another apartment building's targeted, the symptoms being no one answering doors again. Investigation reveals that everything's functional and nothing bizarre's going on, except that every single person who lives there seems to have decided it was a jolly good day to hang themselves. The news will, of course, love it when they hear about it, yet another apartment building targeted. Brockton Bay is large enough that this is more or less statistical noise, but the news isn't known for being reasonable about this sort of thing.

And once again, Glam fails to help at all.

Okay, everybody hanging themselves - and the forensics look solid on it actually being that - really doesn't look Niney.

Yeah, fits the pattern of "something their powers could more-or-less accomplish but not quite their M.O." of these recent kills.

And while it's being wrapped up, Glam's called to Piggot's office. They show up and knock.

"Come in," Piggot says.

They do. "Good afternoon, ma'am."

"Hello, Glam. I'd like a private word."

She looks pointedly at the shoulderbot. The shoulderbot pats Glam on the cheek with one extremity and then flies out.

"Okay. So I probably oughtn't tell Lorica about what we talk about here?"

...this is oddly not distressing. They feel like they should be more distressed by it.

"Not by default. Can you tell me what seems to be the matter with your power recently?"

"Ma'am I would very much love to know the answer to that question." Should they tell her about the hypnosis? Probably, it's relevant information. On the other hand, it's not like anyone other than Lorica really knows how their power works in any amount of detail... "I mean, it's—working, right, I'm wearing my suit right now. But there's—something blocking me, I wasn't feeling anything abnormal and then these things started happening."

"Have you made any progress narrowing it down?"

Tell or not tell?

"...not really. I thought I had but, no."

"How have you been using your time recently, Glam?"

"...I've been reading? And patrolling? And, uh, hanging out with friends" mostly Chelsea "and with" my girlfriend "Lorica" why did they say Lorica and not my girlfriend? "and studying and stuff."

"Friends?" inquires Piggot.

"You know, the other Wards, people from school..."

"No new friends recently?"

Shooould they tell her about Chelsea, then? ...probably, yeah, they told Lorica, she can check up, there's no way they can hide it. And why would they event want to? "I did meet a person about three weeks ago, a tourist."

"Did this tourist say where they were from or why they were in Brockton Bay?"

"I don't remember where she said she was from, and she's a tourist."

...seriously what is Piggot getting at.

Piggot frowns. "It's interesting that you've had so much time to spend on your social life when your power is unreliable and there's a Slaughterhouse Nine copycat group in town."

What.

"I can't work literally all the time or I'll go crazy and besides I already work a lot and besides besides I haven't even seen her that much since the Skinners appeared!"

"Your power seems to think it's entitled to breaks too and you're saying you don't know why. You've been acting peculiar since Behemoth and haven't taken advantage of the therapy resources."

Well they are entitled to breaks, according to Youth Guard regulation, so what the hell?

"So you think I'm, I'm, traumatized by Behemoth or something."

"Or something."