"No. You ever hear, like, a bulletproof vest, referred to as 'body armor'?"

"Oh! The mind thing."

"Yeah. I think 'body armor' is actually to distinguish from, like, tank armor, but the obvious question to me was 'is there such a thing as mind armor'. But it passes as a reference to the suit. My passive power's not public per se."

"Yeah, it's not in your wiki page."

"Deliberately. The other Wards and the Protectorate know and there's protocols for listening to me if I seem to be acting bizarrely for some reason, that kind of thing, but I don't want anyone to have a chance to figure out how to work around it if they have nefarious intentions."

"You're immune to the Simurgh, the only people in the world I could believe would be able to work around it would be Eidolon or Scion."

"By 'work around it' I mean more 'get a teammate to do something non-mental to me' or 'find me out of costume via my immunity and shoot me in the head'."

"Oh. Yes, we would like to avoid that."

"Yeah, I can't really bring an army of defensive robots to school with me."

"...pro: High School in Arcadia High."

"It's still, you know, public school."

"Yeah but I bet you have all sorts of concessions and stuff. And I mean, if you wanted to explain it to someone else saying it's 'public school' would be misleading enough it'd border on being a lie."

"I'd drop out if they'd let me."

"...you would? Why?"

"Because the ability to threaten to call the Youth Guard on my superiors if they waste my time is not worth letting school waste my time? Like, I'm a fucking tinker, is it supposed to be a career advantage? I'm smarter than everyone in my classes even though my thinker rating didn't touch my IQ, is it supposed to enrich my intellect?"

"Oh. Well, I was thinking mostly of. You know. The people. Friends?"

"I assume some people find that a meaningful advantage of attending school."

"...yyyyesss, that is. Uh. I am slightly confused. In specific that you're even talking to me, I mean, I guess now you're probably certain enough that I'm not about to go on a killing spree if you tell me to go duck myself, right?"

"I don't hate people, I just think I can pick people to talk to better on my own time and when not distracted by an obligation to attend to fourth percentile agemates stumbling through Midsummer Night's Dream."

They laugh. "Maybe I should feel flattered that you haven't told me to go duck myself, then."

"You make decent conversation and we can talk shop, which I can't do out of costume."

"Not even with the other Wards?"

"I don't unmask. Most of them do but I don't."

"Oh. Why not? ...doesn't your dad?"

"Yes, which means several people have already been over to our place for dinner and know who he is and therefore who I am, and that's already too many."