"It's not a small choice. It's giving up our neighbors and house and some of our pride and quite possibly my job." Sigh. "But it might be for the best. Clean cut. Fresh start."

"I vote yes, at any rate, Dad. Clean start, rebuild... I can probably actually show you some of what I can do once we're further from that gang."

"Do you have any reason to expect anyone to target you soon? Tonight-soon?"

Dad sighs and looks frustrated. "No, not tonight. This weekend at the earliest - and if I have even just fifty dollars for him then he'll leave me alone for another week."

Mark pauses then reaches into his armor and hands him two fifty-dollar bills.

"No. No, I have enough for a few weeks, I don't need your money. The protective thing might be a good idea if you can't arrest Lian Zhou and his thugs at some point, but I don't need to take a hero's money directly."

He withdraws the offer and nods. "Lian Zhou. That name's familiar."

"No capes in his gang, at least. Not that that makes him harmless."

"Is he one of the Asian gangs?"

"Yep. Active between here and 9th, lost ground to E-88 over the last four weeks but there was some kind of shakeup and now I'm not sure what's happening."

"Walta, since when do you know so much about the gangs?" Her mother asks reprovingly.

"I go to Winslow and pay attention, mom."

"Then... that might just be under our purview, yeah."

"I haven't made any gear specifically for spying. Yet. So I don't know if I can help too much."

He nods. "Are there any more questions you'd like me to answer?"

"From what I hear, stuff I make for the Protectorate is not my property. Which is... Fine. Will I, uh patrol a lot?"

"The intellectual property details are unfortunately not something I'm intimately acquainted with. Your patrol schedule will depend on exactly how your powers are best deployed on the field and seniority."

"We do not want her to be as endangered in the Wards as she would be on her own, Mr. Dauntless. That's the whole point. So I would hope the crazy, reckless kind of heroics are kept to a minimum."

"Crazy and reckless will certainly be absent," he says, seriously. "She will have a comm device with which to request backup, and she won't patrol on her own until she has much more experience on the field."

"Well, I'd rather she just makes things and never gets into actual fights," Walta grimaces in distaste, "...But we've already had that conversation with her, so 'with backup and guidance' will have to do."

He nods then reaches into a pocket behind his armor that contains a contract. "Can you fill this out, please?" he asks Walta.

"As long as it doesn't secretly sign over the rights to my soul or something."

"Good common sense, that's my daughter. Don't sign anything without reading it."

...So she starts reading it.

It's in fact fairly straightforward. Everything she creates while working with the Protectorate is reviewed by them, and they can decide to leave ownership or partial ownership to her. If the Protectorate decides to keep the rights to an invention of hers, it will pay her for it as if purchasing them, and she will receive an extra bonus in addition to the allowance all the Wards get for parts and materials.

And the rest of it - 'image and branding', the rules she'd be under, staying in school, is all acceptable too. She fills out the thing.

"Can you two sign it, too?" he asks her parents.

They do so. "So what now?" Asks her mother. "Does she need to go downtown and get oriented? Do we?"

He shakes his head. "Tomorrow we'll call you to schedule her first visit, and then she will meet with some departments and have a get-together with the team to everyone will get to know her and vice-versa."