"Huh, okay. Specific and complex in an explainable way or a weird way?"

"...bit o' both? If you guys don't have tinkers you won't get it, um, so the way we work is that we get into this—fugue state—during which we completely understand what we're doing and can build lots of things but then when we try to explain to other people it mostly doesn't make sense because sometimes we made a decision that we don't know why we made it it just felt right at the time and does seem to work and does seem to be important in an impossible-to-understand way to the fundamental functioning of it... But usually tinkers have, uh, more-or-less explainable specialties?"

"Huh."

"So my specialty is magnets and more specifically intermittent magnets that do things."

"What kinds of things?"

"Well for instance I have this rope thrower except it has magnets along its length that turn on and off in a specific pattern that makes them sort of trap someone much more completely than regular rope throwers I like it a lot I made it last week."

"Neat."

"Yeah! And this suit, it's all magnets, there's nothing that's, like, really attached, so I can rearrange it—"

It starts making a noise, but then Miss Militia interrupts him with a "Not in the van, please."

The noise stops. "Oops. Sorry," he says, sounding sheepish.

Giggle. "That would be why I wear fabric, I can mess with whatever metal I want underneath without risking indecent exposure." She holds up an arm and a quicksilver tendril of steel snakes out of her sleeve, then thins and lengthens into a thick wire with a round part at the end of it, that blooms into a steel rose. She offers it to him.

"Ooooh." He accepts it.

"It's not the indecent exposure, it's that his suit takes up some space while changing and space is currently at a premium," Miss Militia explains, gesturing around with a smiling crinkle in the corner of her eye.

"Ah. I don't have that problem either."

"I'll show you when we arrive," he promises.

"Awesome."

"How about you, what's your thing?" asks Magnet Master, his visor pointing in Edie's direction.

"Telepath."

"You're fucking joking," says Magnet Master. Miss Militia and Helpful Explainer Who Still Has Not Said Her Name look equally flabbergasted.

"...Noooo...telepathy is actually relatively common as these things go..."

Miss Militia frowns. "True telepathy is thought to be impossible."

"Well. Empirical counterexample, hi."

"When you say telepath," Helpful Explainer asks, a quaver in her voice, "you mean..."

"--Uh, I can read minds and affect them in some ways? Like switching them from 'awake' to 'asleep' or talking in their heads or shielding them from other telepaths or helping sort out addictions and stuff."

"What am I thinking?" says Magnet Master, sounding more curious than anything.

"--Is that consent, I don't read minds without consent or a really good reason."

"Yeah, that's consent," he says, bouncing a bit on his seat.

"You're thinking about ponies."