The PRT catches wind of a strange increase in disappeared domestic animals in the downtown area. Given that the people who live there are the rich and powerful, this is clearly a problem that needs to be investigated and solved immediately. The PRT, of course, agrees that this is of utmost importance, and not just because of precedent about mass abductions of pets, of course not, why would you think that, they are so very worried about Fido, even Scion recognizes the merits of rescuing lost pets.
(Lorica's asked to maybe keep a few more eyes there than she has been.)
Generated:
Post last updated:
blasto, meet official opinions on self-replicating minions
Sadde and Bell in Worm
And sure enough, the weird leafy monkey seems to not notice the cloaked robot. It goes on its way, trying to be sneaky, looking around corners and such. It seems to be moving with purpose.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Follow follow. (It reports in, of course, every move it makes.)
So it'll report the sudden appearance of five other monkeys basically out of nowhere, jumping from the shadows between buildings higher than they ought to be able to, given their statures, somehow able to see the bot in spite of the cloaking.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Yeep! The bot attempts evasive maneuvers. Glam's asleep or it'd ask for a copyswarm.
Evasive maneuvers: fail. The leafy things seem to be able to sprout vines from their hands in order to hold onto the bot, and the five are now hanging onto it.
They're far heavier than they looked, too.
They're far heavier than they looked, too.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The bot descends, struggling to fly; and then it zooms down in an attempt to shake their grip.
He manages to get rid of two of them, but the other three are still holding on tight. And now they're battering it with, again, deceptively strong fists. The vines start squeezing it, finding better grips and starting to dent it.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
With only three it can ascend a little, until they damage the housing for its rotors and the rotors bend.
The monkeys squeeze and pound on the robot some more just for good measure before vanishing into the night.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The robot doesn't do anything.
The base station compiles its report, though.
The base station compiles its report, though.
The PRT receives and reviews this report.
The PRT is worried. The PRT is very worried. Piggot calls a meeting with her lieutenants and Armsmaster. Civilians needn't know about it, of course, for the same reason Lorica's bots aren't allowed to scour the city during the day: it'd cause needless panic. There's nothing they can do about it, and lots of ways they can get in the heroes' way.
But the heroes' patrol routes, coincidentally of course, start going downtown a bit more often.
The PRT is worried. The PRT is very worried. Piggot calls a meeting with her lieutenants and Armsmaster. Civilians needn't know about it, of course, for the same reason Lorica's bots aren't allowed to scour the city during the day: it'd cause needless panic. There's nothing they can do about it, and lots of ways they can get in the heroes' way.
But the heroes' patrol routes, coincidentally of course, start going downtown a bit more often.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Zoom go more numerous bots! Zoom. They stay high, except the expendable ones that Glam provides when they can.
And Lorica's also asked to provide everyone with bots during patrol, because that's just good sense.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
It is just good sense. Everyone gets a bot! You get a bot! You get a bot!
And at one point the PRT and, therefore, the people manning the consoles (currently Armsmaster and Lorica) receive a report of a disturbance near where Silica's patrolling with one such bot.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Bots proliferate and accompany Silica's sand golems to the disturbance.
The disturbance turns out to be Hookwolf versus giant leafy gorilla! Or, not exactly a gorilla—more like an enlarged version of the leafy monkeys.
There are strange vines inside and around Hookwolf's blades, and while they don't seem to be damaging the villain, they're growing fast enough for the eye to see, and hampering his blades'—and his own—movements. The monkey hits Hookwolf with two heavy fists.
There are strange vines inside and around Hookwolf's blades, and while they don't seem to be damaging the villain, they're growing fast enough for the eye to see, and hampering his blades'—and his own—movements. The monkey hits Hookwolf with two heavy fists.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
...Technically speaking as long as the civilians nearby are okay and they're in position to chase the combatants after they're done, this is no skin off the Protectorate's nose. Bots and golems discreetly attempt to make sure nobody's stuck in a nearby building without exit access.
None without exit access, no.
The two of them are in a somewhat more spacious than average side alley. Giant monkey throws Hookwolf at a wall, then starts pummelling him. The villain attempts to lose shape, but the vines are keeping him together enough that it's only half-successful. It's successful enough, however, that he manages to evade one of the monkey's attacks and quickly jump away from its range.
The monkey spits a seed at the villain, and he dodges it, but then it becomes clear that it's the source of the vines as a few start growing out from it but desiccate and die when they don't find anything to hold on to on the ground.
The two of them are in a somewhat more spacious than average side alley. Giant monkey throws Hookwolf at a wall, then starts pummelling him. The villain attempts to lose shape, but the vines are keeping him together enough that it's only half-successful. It's successful enough, however, that he manages to evade one of the monkey's attacks and quickly jump away from its range.
The monkey spits a seed at the villain, and he dodges it, but then it becomes clear that it's the source of the vines as a few start growing out from it but desiccate and die when they don't find anything to hold on to on the ground.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The bots report all this in from their discreet vantage points.
Just as Hookwolf has managed to use his blades to cut through the vines, the monkey punches him with enough force that he soars through the air and, on the way, manages to spot the the bots and golems Silica's remotely controlling. He decides that running is the better part of valor and bolts.
The monkey goes after him, but then notices the same thing Hookwolf did and goes after the minions instead.
The monkey goes after him, but then notices the same thing Hookwolf did and goes after the minions instead.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The robots are high up, and get higher when the monkey jumps. The golems don't have this advantage, but sand is pretty durable against impact and Silica can reform a busted golem as-needed.
Additional bots follow Hookwolf.
Additional bots follow Hookwolf.
The monkey is fairly strong and heavy. And, apparently, not altogether stupid, because once it sees it won't be able to really reach the bots, it starts spitting vine-seeds at them in fast succession.
As for Hookwolf, he's moving pretty fast, but once he notices the bots, he starts going through narrower alleys and trying to lose them by doubling back or zigzagging.
As for Hookwolf, he's moving pretty fast, but once he notices the bots, he starts going through narrower alleys and trying to lose them by doubling back or zigzagging.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Glam, I could use some extra cape power on the scene," Lorica says; bots dodge and swirl around in unpredictable patterns while maintaining a view of the scene as the sand golems continue to batter the monkey.
Glam
mxglam
The monkey's hits are strong enough that a single one is enough to completely destroy a golem, but the golems themselves are numerous and resistant enough that the monkey can't make much progress.
"Okay!" Pause. "Can you send a bot to a hidden corner or something?"
"Okay!" Pause. "Can you send a bot to a hidden corner or something?"
Glam
mxglam
Two copies appear, one holding a large gun and another equipped with two sharp-looking blades. They join the fight, and as soon as the monkey notices them it tries to go through the golems to flee.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Silica forms the golems up into a larger golem that's a little harder to plow through. It forces the monkey to the ground.
Glam
mxglam
The Glam with the gun starts shooting at the monkey as soon as it's within view, and the one with the blades starts tearing at it. Its skin is covered with bark, and its interior is entwined with vines, so that does much less damage than one would expect.
The monkey spits some vine-seeds onto the ground and they grow through it, piercing holes through the golem pinning it down. The monkey then has to get up, but the vines it's used to weaken the golem are pining it to the ground enough that it has some trouble with that, and it's somewhat out of balance when it succeeds.
The copies continue tearing through the regenerating plant matter.
The monkey spits some vine-seeds onto the ground and they grow through it, piercing holes through the golem pinning it down. The monkey then has to get up, but the vines it's used to weaken the golem are pining it to the ground enough that it has some trouble with that, and it's somewhat out of balance when it succeeds.
The copies continue tearing through the regenerating plant matter.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The sand golem divides in two and re-forms into one with no vines in it. It tries to give the gunGlam a clear shot. Bots signal Glam to turn them into Loricas and assist.
Glam
mxglam
Glam asks Lorica to have the first couple of them be turned "off Silica's screen" so she'll be primed for that so she'll be expecting that to happen and not pose a problem.
The gun Glam switches their weapon to something more concentrated and starts shooting at the monkey, burning through its thick exterior so that blades Glam can start hacking into its inner parts.
The gun Glam switches their weapon to something more concentrated and starts shooting at the monkey, burning through its thick exterior so that blades Glam can start hacking into its inner parts.
Glam
mxglam
So they'll be turning into Loricas!
A well positioned vine sprouts from the monkey and pushes blade Glam away, but gun Glam shoots at it until it's cut off from the monkey and blade Glam gets back to it. Between the constant assault and Silica's golem the monkey is having a pretty hard time dodging, each of its movements hampered by the sand brute and important plant tendons being severed by gun and blade.
A well positioned vine sprouts from the monkey and pushes blade Glam away, but gun Glam shoots at it until it's cut off from the monkey and blade Glam gets back to it. Between the constant assault and Silica's golem the monkey is having a pretty hard time dodging, each of its movements hampered by the sand brute and important plant tendons being severed by gun and blade.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Loricas join the attack, holding and striking and zapping the monkey.
Glam
mxglam
And the monkey holds for a surprisingly long time under the continued onslaught, but it wasn't made to withstand that. Blade Glam gets enough of an opening into the monkey that they climb into it and start slicing at internal organs, and after causing enough damage the monkey starts drying up, crumbling into an indistinct mess of blood, gore, and plant matter.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Damn. And there's no figuring out where the monkey came from either. But they can step up the patrols in the area... Lorica tries to get her cloaking device working well enough to function in daylight to no avail.
So there won't be bots during daylight. Other than the pets, there haven't been any strange occurrences, so the civilians might as well not be told that anything's amiss to that point.
(And Downtown is Empire territory, as far as gangs go, so if these monkeys give the nazis trouble like the big one was giving Hookwolf, that is also no skin off the Protectorate's nose.)
(And Downtown is Empire territory, as far as gangs go, so if these monkeys give the nazis trouble like the big one was giving Hookwolf, that is also no skin off the Protectorate's nose.)
Armsmaster
There is a bit over a week of relative peace. Oni Lee is sighted but there's no engagement, and the heroes arrest a couple of drug pushers on the Docks, nothing out of the ordinary. Until, that is, the Protectorate gets wind of the monkeys again, living in...
...a zoo.
They seem to have appeared overnight, and to be behaving just like regular monkeys would. The visitors find them fascinating, but the workers are alarmed—no condition they know of would cause monkeys to cover themselves with bark and other plants, so this is clearly cape-related. The Protectorate is informed of the situation, so they mandate calm evacuation (the zoo is being closed earlier due to whatever issues they manage to invent to cover it).
Of course this all goes to hell when the first hybrid monkey starts eating a non-hybrid one. And it goes a bit further into hell when the monkeys start going after the civilians and manage to snatch a couple. Armsmaster calls all the available heroes (Glimmer, Dauntless, Velocity, Drupe, Miss Militia, Glam, Lorica, and himself) to move in at once.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
In go heroes to usher out zoo visitors, set up a perimeter, and contain/destroy plant monkeys. Miss Militia suggests fire. Well, "suggests". "Tries aiming a flamethrower at a plant monkey" more like.
Glam
mxglam
By the time the heroes have arrived, there are far more monkeys than there were at first. The monkeys are somewhat spread out, and they seem to be eating animals and then... duplicating, each resulting monkey slightly different from its "parent," having mutated upon reproduction. The monkeys are divided in two groups: one attacking and distracting the heroes, and another obtaining biological matter for further duplication.
This is, of course, terrible.
The more mobile heroes—Glimmer, Dauntless, Velocity, and a bunch of bots and bot-controlled Glam—and Lorica-copies—surround the zoo to make sure none of the monkeys escape. Drupe, Armsmaster, Miss Militia, bots, and Glam-controlled Glam-copies spread around the zoo to try to take down as many monkeys as they can.
And it turns out fire does work.
This is, of course, terrible.
The more mobile heroes—Glimmer, Dauntless, Velocity, and a bunch of bots and bot-controlled Glam—and Lorica-copies—surround the zoo to make sure none of the monkeys escape. Drupe, Armsmaster, Miss Militia, bots, and Glam-controlled Glam-copies spread around the zoo to try to take down as many monkeys as they can.
And it turns out fire does work.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Glam-flamethrowers for everyone, especially the bots. (Bots note without relay that Piggot is swearing a lot while she reviews incoming fight data.) Fortunately, a lot of the zoo's biomatter is locked up. Unfortunately, some of it's open enclosures and the monkeys are more mobile than your garden variety penguin. FIRE.
Glam
mxglam
They really are! But they're significantly more flammable than your garden variety penguin, what with all the wood.
They keep self-duplicating as fast as they can consume matter, even consuming their own dead, and mutating whenever they do, with most changes useless or worse: some monkeys born with an extra digit, an extra arm, an extra head, differently-colored fur, slightly taller, slightly shorter, only one eye, dead, but mutate they do.
And yet, fire continues to consume them. The Glams switch to fire suppressors, making sure it's only the monkeys that get burned instead of the whole zoo, and the heroes continue tearing through them.
They keep self-duplicating as fast as they can consume matter, even consuming their own dead, and mutating whenever they do, with most changes useless or worse: some monkeys born with an extra digit, an extra arm, an extra head, differently-colored fur, slightly taller, slightly shorter, only one eye, dead, but mutate they do.
And yet, fire continues to consume them. The Glams switch to fire suppressors, making sure it's only the monkeys that get burned instead of the whole zoo, and the heroes continue tearing through them.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Bots, at Lorica's instruction, start paying attention to making sure the dead monkeys are actively on fire and therefore unappetizing to eat. Others help Glams contain the flame.
Glam
mxglam
Burn eat duplicate mutate burn eat duplicate mutate burn burn burn eat duplicate—
—mutate—
—eat. It's one monkey, eating a burnt comrade and then duplicating, and then both monkeys are eating burnt comrades and the fire isn't doing anything.
—mutate—
—eat. It's one monkey, eating a burnt comrade and then duplicating, and then both monkeys are eating burnt comrades and the fire isn't doing anything.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"We've got flame-resistant monkeys, if you've got other tricks concentrate force there," says Lorica, and bots shine a spotlight on the lineage. "Don't let them eat anything! Glam, foam sprayer some bots!"
Glam
mxglam
Glam provides foam sprayers and switches to laser guns. Armsmaster burns the remaining few monkeys around himself and gets his halberd, using its sharp blades and metal balls to tear through the ranks of the hybrids.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Foam sprays on the flame-resistant monkeys. Drupe, who wasn't using fire to begin with, beats feet towards the site and applies plant control.
Glam
mxglam
Plant control is useful! While the monkeys can resist it some because they're not completely plants, it still limits how fast they can go and how much they can spread. There aren't that many flame-resistant monkeys, anyway, and they're susceptible to more mundane forms of extermination.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
And now there are zero flame-resistant monkeys. Well, one that isn't going anywhere because it's foamed.
The force un-concentrates and burns the other monkeys.
The force un-concentrates and burns the other monkeys.
Glam
mxglam
And fire continues being an effective weapon against the other ones, until they're all dead or foamed. None seem to have even attempted to escape.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
And now it's cleanup time. Well, that's not the capes' job, although the bots don't mind helping the PRT.
Glam
mxglam
And Glam can spare a few bot-controlled copies with appropriately conjured cleaning tools to help, too.
Armsmaster
News spreads. Self-duplicating creatures in Brockton Bay. An explanation to the mystery of the missing pets. Did the Protectorate know? Who's responsible for this? Was this engineered, or the result of an out-of-control cape? What are the heroes going to do about it?
In a word: panic.
High-profile heroes give statements about measures being taken and about how the Protectorate's on top of it already. They know the culprit: a tinker named Blasto, specialized in plant hybrids, current whereabouts unknown. The Protectorate reassures the population that, should it be found that Blasto's actively creating out-of-control, self-replicating minions, they will do everything in their power to stop him, including placing him on the list of most wanted parahumans, a spot he'd share with people such as the Slaughterhouse Nine.
It is implied but not said that the kill order would be part of the deal.
In order to demonstrate how seriously the Protectorate takes this matter, robots controlled by an artificial intelligence that has been used on battles against Endbringers will be roaming the city twenty-four/seven, concentrating on the downtown areas where the latest sightings have occurred, but being spread around every district.
In a word: panic.
High-profile heroes give statements about measures being taken and about how the Protectorate's on top of it already. They know the culprit: a tinker named Blasto, specialized in plant hybrids, current whereabouts unknown. The Protectorate reassures the population that, should it be found that Blasto's actively creating out-of-control, self-replicating minions, they will do everything in their power to stop him, including placing him on the list of most wanted parahumans, a spot he'd share with people such as the Slaughterhouse Nine.
It is implied but not said that the kill order would be part of the deal.
In order to demonstrate how seriously the Protectorate takes this matter, robots controlled by an artificial intelligence that has been used on battles against Endbringers will be roaming the city twenty-four/seven, concentrating on the downtown areas where the latest sightings have occurred, but being spread around every district.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Lorica gratefully turns her attention to matters other than the cloaking device. Robots fly loose, looking around. If civilians address them they will even pause to make polite small talk and then move on.
Glam
mxglam
Not very many civilians do, at first, but some, and the reaction is at least somewhat positive.
Over the next couple of days, there are no new sightings of any creatures with more plant in them than usual. And after recording a webisode where they finally show their ability to create copies, Glam floats over to Lorica's workshop. Knock knock!
Over the next couple of days, there are no new sightings of any creatures with more plant in them than usual. And after recording a webisode where they finally show their ability to create copies, Glam floats over to Lorica's workshop. Knock knock!
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It does, I was getting almost nowhere with that, it was so frustrating."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"You mean besides 'badly'? You really want me to try to explain you tinkertech?"
Glam
mxglam
"No, I mean, how do you convince your power to give you a cloaking device? Not the details."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Oh. My power will cough up most things if I give it enough levers for software rather than a human operator to push. I got it to work at night because light conditions vary a lot more meaningfully at night - so I could have a setting for flying under a streetlight and various levels of light pollution and moon phases and stuff - and I was trying to convince it that 'daylight' was a valid setting but didn't get anywhere. And it didn't work very well because I didn't want it deciding when to be invisible, I needed to be able to guarantee that it'd just stay that way, and I didn't think that 'it will probably usually judge that it is correct to be invisible' would fly."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It's not that uncommon that the bot makes a decision that I wouldn't have known to authorize in advance. That's okay if it's just making tactical choices but it's a problem if it catches me in a lie about my design."
Glam
mxglam
"Are there many instances of it making decisions you wouldn't have approved of even in hindsight?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Not lately. But there are totally things I'd want a bot to go visible for, and they don't want it to go visible under reasonable circumstances, they want it to never do that."
Glam
mxglam
"Wouldn't the bot agree with you that showing the Protectorate only invisibility was a good decision, even if it was in fact capable of choosing not to be invisible?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Not if it thought it wouldn't get caught and there was some kind of emergency calling for it to be visible. It learns from me and that's the kind of thing I'd do. But if I am calling the shots and people don't like the shots I call I can say 'sorry, won't happen again, human error' and if the bot does it while I'm not at the keyboard after I told them it would not do that no such leeway. Ugh, I want out."
Glam
mxglam
"Ugh," they agree. "Yeah, that sucks. Why couldn't they just let the bot decide...? They use its AI on Endbringer fights!"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"In Endbringer fights the PR stakes are lower and the baseline rate of gone-to-hell is higher. They can tolerate a lot more variance. People try all kinds of crazy shit in Endbringer fights and I'm nowhere near the most outrageous."
Glam
mxglam
They giggle. "Well, when you mentioned there were different kinds it did become pretty obvious, I suppose."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I can extend my lunch break. Remind me what protocol you wanted to do it with?"
Glam
mxglam
"I didn't define it completely but I think I make a you-copy, I go to my room, one of you comes, we talk for a bit, if that you isn't you you squint at it, I come here, I make a you-copy again, then back to my room, then the one who didn't come the first time comes then, we talk a bit more, then I try to guess which was the real you."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Lorica and her copy high-five. "Shoo," says one of them. It's hard to tell which when they've both got helmets on.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Hey you," says the Lorica. She or it sits on Sadde's bed.
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Your bot monitors every conversation you have, doesn't it? Having the exact same conversation twice in a row wouldn't be a good idea."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah. I mean, it does have a better memory than I do so unless it was prompting me I couldn't pull off a verbatim duplicate."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"So if this is the real you and your bot were trying to emulate you later, it would also not pull off a verbatim duplicate. Unless you'd want to ask for its help to do it?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I get info from the bot all the time. Reminders and Wikipedia checks and calculations and whatnot. It's probably like thirty effective IQ points when I put the helmet on."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I haven't actually sat down with a Stanford-Binet," she admits. "But I'm not sure there exist IQ test problems my bot can't do so I might just break it if I took it while flagrantly cheating."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"I suppose. So, if we were to repeat this conversation, would you blatantly cheat?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Unless I had some reason to want to fuck it up, yeah. Better come up with a new opener for trial two."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Populating the flock. Patrolling a whole city's a big job for a few dozen."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah, but now I need enough of 'em that they can also perform normal bot functions when I'm patrolling in person or called to some location."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Oh. Fair. Couldn't I supply you with some, in the meantime? Set them up so that shoulderbot," she pets hers, "will ping me or something the moment they disappear?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Sure, that'd be nice. Trouble is they can't go too far on their own because if they do disappear - you're distracted or whatever - they just vanish and you can only remake them near one that still exists."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"I'm not sure how to solve it, but something I just couldn't ignore, like... Maybe a very loud sound in earbuds, something I couldn't ignore. It wouldn't work while I'm asleep, but," shrug.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Not off the top of my head. You do seem to have a limit in how many things you can make at once, so if you suddenly have to make a lot of stuff there'll be disappearing bots no matter what the shoulderbot does about it."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Yeah, but the limit seemed to have to do with how much I could notice those things. Like, when there were too many things to keep track of, and they could get away with disappearing without my noticing, which the loud beep is supposed to prevent."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It might turn out to matter at scale if you can tell which one it is."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"How many bots do you even need, to cover Brockton Bay? And how many do you have?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Depends on the standards for 'cover'. I have fifty now and I'm aiming for seventy-five."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Hmmm, I think twenty-five isn't that hard to manage, and actually less than that since you'll continue to build them."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Sure, so you're welcome to fill in for now, but I want those test results before I rely on it too heavily. And you sleep."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"She is. I wonder what it is about parahumans who don't sleep, it's not like her power has anything to do with sleeping."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Well, it's not like my tinkering has anything to do with mental opacity, some people are just lucky like that."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Yeah, that's true." Pause. "And that led my brain through a tortuous path that makes me wonder, how'd your dad move about before you made his suit?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"...teleporting, same way he does now? It wasn't as effective because he didn't have safeties to turn on and off for precision."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Yeah, that's what I mean, how'd he get anything done? ...how high's the variance in his precision, anyway?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Really high. He could still do the roof angling thing - absent subways - but he had a hard time being effectively tactical."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"But I mean, is it high on the level of city blocks, cities, states, countries, continents...?"
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Is that the farthest he goes from his starting point, or the farthest he can end up from his target?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"From his starting point. He can't target per se, at least not with his power. He only gets to pick direction."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Oh, so he always ends up somewhere along his chosen direction, it's just how far along it that changes?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah. The power picks a safe place, and if there's lots of those it picks a distance too."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"By the way, if you're the fake Bella, does the real one get a recap of this conversation? Like, would she be listening in, or getting a summary later, or something?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It wouldn't be fair otherwise, since the bot always listens in on me."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Okay, good. In that case I think we're done, don't wanna run out of stuff to talk about before the other one comes."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I'm not used to you swapping binary genders in the middle of a day," she remarks. She sits down. "Hi."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
He sits down, too. "Today's a nonbinary day. I usually stick to a single gender on those, but I wanted to change up the experimental circumstances."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"You want to turn in your results now or sit me here for a while longer keeping me in suspense?"
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Well, not exactly suspense, but I do want to make sure. There's effectively no body language to pick up on, here, so I have to kind of go with my gut and some small details. Don't wanna guess wrong just because I wasn't patient enough to check."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Alright, so, picking up where we left off... I had a thing I wanted to talk about but I can't remember what it was."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Yeah! But now I remembered. Do you know if anyone triggered around the same time and place you did?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"If they did they're trapped in London quarantine, Sadde."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Anyway! Reason I brought it up was that I was reading some stuff undergrads study on Parahumans 101, and there was a bit talking about how people with more than one power tend to be parts of mass triggers."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I didn't think Miss Militia was, although she doesn't exactly talk about it much."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Maybe she doesn't know it is. And, I dunno, maybe not-sleeping doesn't count as a power at all? She's not the only cape with that thing, and no other powers have exact duplicates."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Somebody's taking really effective microsleeps every few times they blink, somebody's sleeping and then time traveling to the past and erasing all memories of their shameful sleepy secret..."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Time traveling would be huge, if whatever gives us powers used that to keep someone awake that'd be such a waste."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
She doesn't disappear.
She takes her helmet off. "How'd you guess? I thought the bot was pitch-perfect."
She takes her helmet off. "How'd you guess? I thought the bot was pitch-perfect."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"It really wasn't. I was fairly sure it wasn't you the first time it said 'we'd have to test that,' and I was also fairly sure you were you when you asked me about ducking with my independent variable."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Snort. "Do I not say we'd have to test things? I am pro testing things!"
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Yes, but that's... in some sort of undefinable way, not really the kind of thing you'd have said at the time. I'm not sure I can tell what you would have said, and I may be completely mistaken about what's really going on in my brain, but I think it wouldn't have been that."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Huh. I didn't conduct a parallel conversation where I said what I would have said so I guess we'll never know for sure. But you did guess right."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Hmm, I have a good enough model of you to tell you apart from the bot. Do you have a good enough model of me to guess?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"We're going to compare fingerprints, right? I can't do that in armor."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I'm clockwise swirls!" She shoves her hand in his face to demonstrate and push him over onto his bed.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
So she has a look at his hands. A look, a nibble, they're so similar.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Maybe my fingerprints are vanilla and yours are chocolate, how am I supposed to know if I don't check?" Nibble.
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
An overall successful day! Followed by cuddling.
"Do you suppose your bot will ever become good enough to fool me?"
"Do you suppose your bot will ever become good enough to fool me?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Maybe? I'm not sure how to actually fix the thing you noticed."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Well, the better the model it has of you the easier its job will be? But I'm not sure it can have a good enough model that's not tantamount to just simulating you, and..."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I don't think it's going to wake up as me. The way it produces me-responses isn't very much like simulation."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"...Well, it's not simulating my thought process, anyway, it's emulating what I've said in the past and consulting what it knows I know."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Well people don't act exactly the same way twice, even if it knows everything you do, if it's not performing the same steps of inference you are it will try to just predict your actions based on similar situations and that'll be fine most of the time but sometimes it won't."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It's also a little more conservative in general than I am because I don't like it to commit to things that I only might agree to."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"That, too. And I think it didn't swear a single time while we were talking. You're more—lively."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It did too. It knows you're not on the list of people it needs to swear-filter me for and it did in fact say 'fuck it up'."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"Oh. Then I dunno, I may be full of it. I mean, I was pretty sure you were you very quickly, but I don't know which parts of it tipped me off."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"So much the worse for the power of love. Get your psychic connection off of me."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah? I wouldn't give her an exact duplicate of either. Dad's is riddled with toggleable safety features to control where he bounces and hers needs to be optimized to take advantage of the rewinding."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I'm going to organize the onboard memory significantly differently and have it extrapolating a lot from the fact that it finds itself in the past relative to what the rest of the network says."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It's just lucky she can rewind things through armor-thickness stuff or I'd have to have all kinds of hardware in place to make it get out of her way when she seemed to be purposefully reaching for stuff."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It'd depend on how it worked. If she could work through flexible material but not anything rigid..."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Good question. Maybe I'll schedule some testing for that. If it's contact and not range maybe she should go around with a baton."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"...I just had this hilarious mental image of her going around batting people into the past."
Sadde Baldwin
mxglam
"If it's contact and no range, though, she could use something like a grappling hook of sorts, or something smaller, even, a thin chain she shoots from her hand to touch someone."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Oooh, I could totally add those to the suit, we should power test this before I get too deep into building it."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The bot can field this one. Wear a bunch of layers of gloves, and if you can't get enough gloves to make it not work try tapping stuff with sticks of greater lengths. And are you sure you have to actually touch things to rewind them?
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
If it turns out you can tap things with other things it'll affect suit design!
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Extensible bits that auto-aim so you don't have to close with a target.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
And when those results are in and promising Lorica brings Rewind a glove with an extensible cord that taps whatever she points to see if that works too.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Point at something! And, uh, until the suit and you have more practice together don't point at things you don't intend to boop. It'll notice if you don't boop something it taps and update. This is just to see if it works though."
"Like, what, with a finger?" she asks, then looks at her shoulderbot. "Can you scoot over there so I can point at you?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The bot scoots.
"With a finger or with a whole-hand pointing gesture or whatever."
"With a finger or with a whole-hand pointing gesture or whatever."
And the bot is on Rewind again, subjectively as far back as immediately after she had asked it to scoot over there, while the stringy thing Rewind's glove shot is hanging slack there.
"Hmm," she says.
"Hmm," she says.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The glove retracts the zotted thing. "I'm going to make that retract faster," Lorica says, "but this sufficed to make sure it'd work at all."
"I'm gonna need to practice timing with this thing, I had meant to send the bot a bit before that. And I don't know if it needs to retract, 'cause—" She points at a wall.
Then she "touches" the glove, aiming for it—and the zotting stringy thing attached to it—to rewind back to the coiled state.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Okay," says Lorica, "but you don't necessarily want to have to do that all the time, especially since both gloves will have zot things and you might have a lot of targets."
"I might do that all the time anyway, my M.O. was booping someone else and then immediately booping myself away from them, it's not that different."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It'll be easy to make it quick-retracting anyway. Unless there's a reason it shouldn't I'll just go with the design I have."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Ten feet. I can get it longer if you want but it'd involve switching to a gauntlet instead of a glove."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yep. Every time you zot a thing the bot will learn more about how to anticipate you."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Uh, well, he'll have a harder time closing and the suit will hold up against a modest amount of fire but please don't be rash."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"He'll know something's happened when suddenly the things around him are ten minutes ahead of where they were."
"Yeah, but I'll still be pretty far from him and can retreat and stuff, he can't just literally swat me aside like he did."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I guess. But please don't get yourself killed overextending something I gave you, I would feel guilty."
She grabs a pen and reaches to scratch under the leg cast. "Hate this. Can't wait to get it off, but they said I shouldn't go out for at least a week after that. Ugh."
"No but I'll have to run water over it all the time and rest and be still and I've been still for weeks."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Sorry. The shoulderbot's distracting you as best it can."
"Yeah, like, it's much better with it around, and going out on ambulances to help people is cool, too, but it's still being carted around everywhere and cooped up and ugh."
Glam
mxglam
And a few days later, Rewind's released from the "hospital" which just happens to be inside the PRT building. Glam, of course, throws her another party, because why not.
She does! No one is gonna be doing anything for her because she can do shit out of her own volition!
Caaake!
Caaake!
Well, actually, someone will be doing a thing for her. She walks up to Lorica.
"So when do I get the armor?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"You could wear it now if you wanted but I'd keep asking for bits back to make changes. Wouldn't hurt to have a trial fitting though."
So there's cake, everyone's happy, Glam has to man the console and remotely patrol, and Rewind's bouncing with excitement.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The suit's in Lorica's workshop. "Here you go. If you start putting it on it'll help, you'll get used to that."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The armor answers: it snugs up when it's been correctly located, and bits attach to each other. "Like that."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"There you go. It's impact cutting, you're probably fine to run around even on a recently healed leg, give it a whirl."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The suit can't predict-and-amplify her as well as it can predict Lorica, because Rewind doesn't have implants, but it's easy for her to touch the ceiling and she lands lightly.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"...I explained it's not point-and-click. But now that you've mentioned it the bot knows you've got flying on the brain and you should be able to kick off, and it'll get easier as it learns you better."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
And this time she winds up hovering about a foot off the ground.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The bot understands that! It propels her forward at a nice sedate inside-Lorica's-workshop pace.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
She swivels in the air and goes the other way, veering slightly anywhere she turns her head towards or looks at for more than a moment.
Her movements are a bit more expansive than that, using her whole body to turn, and doing so in a zigzagging fashion akin to the way she moves on the field.
"I'm gonna need to play with this, with like, dummies or something. Oh I bet I can get Glam to make me pretend villains to swat!"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I bet they'd be delighted." (Glam's shoulderbot relays this idea and admonishes them to be gentle with the suit and Rewind.)
"What now, then? Do I gotta give you the suit and only take it when I use it or do I take it with me or what?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I'm still making finishing touches but you can practice with it whenever I'm not doing that. Your shoulderbot can let you know."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It'll be ready to go out with you when you are, but I'll need to maintain it. Tune-up every two weeks if nothing hits you that you don't rewind away, and after it takes lasting damage."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"And that's less often than I have to fiddle with mine or Dad's because yours is going to spend less time in active use and experiencing the ongoing passage of time."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"You do in combat, which is when it'd be under the most materials stress. I'll need it back more often if you're planning to just walk around in it all the time like I do."
She ponders as she finishes taking the suit off. "Mmmmmmaybe, flying's cool, and it'd help your bot know more about me, yeah?"
"Are you kidding me I can fly and shoot stuff out of my hands to tag people and there's a HUD it's awesome of course I like it!"
And just as Rewind is walking away from Lorica's workshop, one of the bots patrolling downtown notices some suspicious movement over there.
It's an apparently ordinary office building. A bit less fancy than the average, for the area, but otherwise pretty ordinary. But what caught the bot's eye was a flash inside one of the tinted windows, and—
Crusader flies through it, shattering the window as he's thrown outside. He generates a duplicate to catch himself before he goes splat on the concrete.
And a tree branch with crimson leaves grows out of the window he just broke, much faster than branches ought to.
Crusader flies through it, shattering the window as he's thrown outside. He generates a duplicate to catch himself before he goes splat on the concrete.
And a tree branch with crimson leaves grows out of the window he just broke, much faster than branches ought to.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The bot sends up high alert and solicits immediate glambot backup.
Lorica is jolted out of programming fugue to attend to the situation.
Lorica is jolted out of programming fugue to attend to the situation.
Two hybrid monkeys jump out of the window after Crusader, and two of Crusader's clones that were inside the building follow them. When they're outside, one of the ways they've evaded tracking this long becomes obvious to the bot: at least some of them seem to have evolved a very advanced form of camouflage, quickly taking on the properties of their background (though it seems not quick enough when they're actually running around). That, coupled with their very low body temperature, coupled with Brockton Bay being a big city, meant that they could effectively stay out of sight most of the time.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Lorica writes thirty lines of code real quick to sharpen the bots' visual discernment for this situation and then goes back to paying attention to the fight. Glam's shoulderbot suggests that flamethrowers would be good too.
Glam
mxglam
While she was looking away, Purity showed up from inside the building and started shooting the monkeys, causing worryingly little damage in spite of going at it with enough force to crack the concrete they were standing on. As Lorica watches, a blindingly fast vine shoots out of the window, wrapping itself around Purity's midsection and pulling her back inside.
Glam gives the bots a gun that can throw flames or a flame retardant depending on a setting, which is just as well because the two camouflaged monkeys are running away in different directions. Armsmaster has started gathering some heroes and sending them in—he and Drupe are coming on his bike, Miss Militia is supposed to pick Windflower up, Glimmer and Silica are patrolling and for the moment needn't come but should try to stay nearby in case their help's needed.
Glam gives the bots a gun that can throw flames or a flame retardant depending on a setting, which is just as well because the two camouflaged monkeys are running away in different directions. Armsmaster has started gathering some heroes and sending them in—he and Drupe are coming on his bike, Miss Militia is supposed to pick Windflower up, Glimmer and Silica are patrolling and for the moment needn't come but should try to stay nearby in case their help's needed.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Bots chase the escaping monkeys with extreme prejudice. Other bots - disposable Glambots - enter the building with the tree to check it out.
Yup, that's a tree. A huge tree, apparently going through all floors and occupying the entire building, while having managed to keep far enough away from the tinted windows that it wasn't visible from the outside. The tree moves, sluggishly, but still in ways trees ought not move.
Its purpose becomes clear, as well: in addition to the several differently-mutated monkeys here and there, many of which are fighting Purity and Crusader's clones (even being impaled is not enough to stop them most of the time), there are several monkeys connected to the tree, duplicating quickly, with mutations, and then having one of the duplicates killed for nutrients, with some help from other monkeys to ensure only "good" mutations persist.
Its purpose becomes clear, as well: in addition to the several differently-mutated monkeys here and there, many of which are fighting Purity and Crusader's clones (even being impaled is not enough to stop them most of the time), there are several monkeys connected to the tree, duplicating quickly, with mutations, and then having one of the duplicates killed for nutrients, with some help from other monkeys to ensure only "good" mutations persist.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The robot informs everyone that it is definitely time to freak the fuck out and solicits permission to torch the place. It is sure the flock could contain the fire barring unforeseen circumstances. (The flock looks for non-Empire human presence in the building.)
Apparently Purity, Crusader, Hookwolf, Stormtiger, Krieg, Cricket, Night, and Fog are in the building, isn't that interesting? Also very peculiar how no one called the Protectorate about this, almost as if this building might not be just your regular old civilian building.
In any case, even if the Empire are villains, killing them would break the unwritten rules of the cape community. Besides unforeseen circumstances seem to crop up pretty terribly often when these monkeys are involved, and you never know what they could have evolved in the meantime. Using fire: definitely not allowed. Too much risk.
In any case, even if the Empire are villains, killing them would break the unwritten rules of the cape community. Besides unforeseen circumstances seem to crop up pretty terribly often when these monkeys are involved, and you never know what they could have evolved in the meantime. Using fire: definitely not allowed. Too much risk.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The bots attempt to form a three-dimensional perimeter and shoo civilians from neighboring buildings while they can still pretty much go down the street on foot. Maybe the monkeys (and the E88) should be contained with foam on the various exits?
Glam
mxglam
That sounds like a swell idea! Glam provides imaginary foam sprayers and pops in a couple of copies under their own control so they can help along, too. They need to be transmitted a visual of their copies so they can go into the building and see if they can't contain the monkeys more directly.
Glam
mxglam
Good! So the copies go inside and start foaming monkeys and—
—that sets them off. Before the bots and copies can cover more than a couple of exits and windows, monkeys explode out of every exit and non-exit like an angry hive. Several of them, it appears, have evolved wings, and are carrying some less fortunate hybrids in all directions away from the building.
—that sets them off. Before the bots and copies can cover more than a couple of exits and windows, monkeys explode out of every exit and non-exit like an angry hive. Several of them, it appears, have evolved wings, and are carrying some less fortunate hybrids in all directions away from the building.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Auntie Em," Lorica indulges herself; the comm doesn't transmit it. "Glam, I need population and if you can't sustain it I need kamikaze bots."
Glam
mxglam
"On it, make sure they beep really loudly if even one of them disappears. What do you want on them?" they ask, already making a couple here and there where people aren't looking and then where people are looking 'cause at this point it's pretty much a given that Glam works remotely to anyone who's been paying attention.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Narrow flamethrowers that only burn organics if you can swing that, and infinite foam supplies."
Glam
mxglam
"Of course I can swing that," they say with much more confidence than they feel.
And the monkeys keep coming, there are so many of them, but Glam is onto you, Glam is making so many bots.
And the monkeys keep coming, there are so many of them, but Glam is onto you, Glam is making so many bots.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
And the bots chase monkeys and set them the fuck on fire, ready to foam anything other than monkeys that catches; and bots are trying to contain the ones that are still in the building; and bots are directing evacuees to MOVE IT.
Evacuees are moving it but there's panic and disorder, they have not been trained about evacuation to free from hybrid monkeys.
The bots set one of the flying monkeys on fire, and it catches. The monkey it's holding doesn't, and disentangles itself from the flying one, and falls onto its death—
Wait, nope, not its death, it cracks on the concrete and vines start growing from it, and those vines are now roots and it's starting to grow a tree—
And of course, similar fates befall any other monkeys the bots don't manage to strictly incinerate before they hit the ground.
The bots set one of the flying monkeys on fire, and it catches. The monkey it's holding doesn't, and disentangles itself from the flying one, and falls onto its death—
Wait, nope, not its death, it cracks on the concrete and vines start growing from it, and those vines are now roots and it's starting to grow a tree—
And of course, similar fates befall any other monkeys the bots don't manage to strictly incinerate before they hit the ground.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The bots start ganging up on the monkeys to make sure they're ash and not - seeds. Bots set fire to the tree.
Glam
mxglam
But the monkeys just keep coming there are so many of them, good thing Glam's making lots of bots, rig—
BEEP
Suddenly a little more than half the bots Glam has made disappear simultaneously, not in a predictable pattern except for "not the ones Glam was looking at that exact moment."
BEEP
Suddenly a little more than half the bots Glam has made disappear simultaneously, not in a predictable pattern except for "not the ones Glam was looking at that exact moment."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Suicide run bots!" Lorica says. "Shaped flame charges with bot chassis, keep them coming, they'll wreck themselves as fast as you can make 'em." The shoulderbot indicates where they need to be.
Armsmaster
Not exactly too little, too late, but too little, too late. Even some monkeys that are burnt down manage to grow into large enough trees that they smother the fire.
That's around the time Armsmaster arrives on his bike with Drupe, a couple of PRT vans only about two minutes behind him. "Contain them," Armsmaster practically hisses to Drupe as he uses his Halberd as a grappling hook to get into the building.
That's around the time Armsmaster arrives on his bike with Drupe, a couple of PRT vans only about two minutes behind him. "Contain them," Armsmaster practically hisses to Drupe as he uses his Halberd as a grappling hook to get into the building.
Drupe will find it simultaneously easier and harder to control these hybrids: they have more plant matter than animal in them, but they're also stronger and more capable of resisting his control. Still, he manages to reduce and eventually stop the outflow of flying monkeys if he keeps concentration.
The Protectorate has pressed full panic mode now, however, with two dozen trees growing downtown in many different places, and monkeys protecting them from the kamikaze-bots. The higher-ups have called New Wave, who will be joining the fight shortly, and Glimmer, Silica, and Velocity are to come at once.
PRT officers have sectioned off the area and are busy evacuating civilians from all nearby buildings, and some of the downtown air raid sirens are sounding so they can evacuate their buildings and go to Endbringer shelters. The higher-ups message Lorica and tell her if she can find a way to burn that building down without damaging the other ones and making sure Armsmaster and the villains aren't in it she should do it.
The Protectorate has pressed full panic mode now, however, with two dozen trees growing downtown in many different places, and monkeys protecting them from the kamikaze-bots. The higher-ups have called New Wave, who will be joining the fight shortly, and Glimmer, Silica, and Velocity are to come at once.
PRT officers have sectioned off the area and are busy evacuating civilians from all nearby buildings, and some of the downtown air raid sirens are sounding so they can evacuate their buildings and go to Endbringer shelters. The higher-ups message Lorica and tell her if she can find a way to burn that building down without damaging the other ones and making sure Armsmaster and the villains aren't in it she should do it.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Lorica promptly solicits from Glam more foambots. She coats adjacent buildings in a protective layer of foam and sends in Lorica-copies to evac E88, comms Armsmaster to be ready to get out on her signal.
Glam
mxglam
Foambots: are provided.
The Empire's in bad shape. Purity's mostly unharmed but she's definitely outnumbered. With Drupe's help slowing monkeys and vines down she's managing to get the upper hand but it's slow going. Hookwolf isn't having a whole lot of success, and has been trying to escape for a while now. Crusader's pretty much okay, if exhausted from using so many duplicates. Stormtiger, Krieg, and Cricket are having Lots Of Trouble doing anything other than surviving, and even Fog's only still Fog-shaped because that's better than being a human. Only Night's been met with undeniable success, though both of them return to human form when Lorica directs them outside.
Evacuation starts but is slow.
The Empire's in bad shape. Purity's mostly unharmed but she's definitely outnumbered. With Drupe's help slowing monkeys and vines down she's managing to get the upper hand but it's slow going. Hookwolf isn't having a whole lot of success, and has been trying to escape for a while now. Crusader's pretty much okay, if exhausted from using so many duplicates. Stormtiger, Krieg, and Cricket are having Lots Of Trouble doing anything other than surviving, and even Fog's only still Fog-shaped because that's better than being a human. Only Night's been met with undeniable success, though both of them return to human form when Lorica directs them outside.
Evacuation starts but is slow.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Lorica-copies are willing to fly villains out of the conflagration-to-be if necessary to get the place empty stat.
Glam
mxglam
"Lorica, don't burn the thing, I have an idea," Glam says into the comm for everyone to hear. "Windflower, if we manage to evac everyone, I could conjure a containment thing around the building and you could poison everything. Think you could do it?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah," says Windflower. "I can poison the heck out of everything if it's contained real good. ...Can it be see-through so you can have copies in with me in case something doesn't die?"
"Of course they can," Lorica says.
"Of course they can," Lorica says.
Glam
mxglam
"Yup, sure. Okay, evac evac, come on stupid nazis get out."
New Wave has arrived! Not on this scene, they've scattered around to fight other monkey-trees, as have the other heroes. Armsmaster leaves the building and gets on his bike to reach the closest non-burnt-down tree, and after all villains have been removed from the building Glam makes a copy say, for the Empire's benefit, "Get the heck out I'm gonna contain and she's gonna poison the place!" And after they've done it: transparent containment dome.
New Wave has arrived! Not on this scene, they've scattered around to fight other monkey-trees, as have the other heroes. Armsmaster leaves the building and gets on his bike to reach the closest non-burnt-down tree, and after all villains have been removed from the building Glam makes a copy say, for the Empire's benefit, "Get the heck out I'm gonna contain and she's gonna poison the place!" And after they've done it: transparent containment dome.
Once the containment's up Windflower lets loose with a combo of the most lethal, corrosive stuff she's got as fast as she can make it.
Glam
mxglam
And the monkeys start perishing in contact with the poisons—nowhere near as fast as humans would, but still pretty damn fast.
"Okay, we got a bunch of other trees to do this to, we should move."
"Okay, we got a bunch of other trees to do this to, we should move."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"You want to Windflower all of them? ...Oh, of course, you'll just make the containment thing selectively permeable to Windflower alone and check on it every half hour."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Wait, so I can just walk out?" Windflower asks.
"Is the place full?"
"Yeah."
"Then yep, you can just walk right through and a bot will show you to the next tree."
So Windflower walks out.
Meanwhile, the bot flock continues kamikaze and ranged operations against monkeys and trees and monkeys attempting to emerge from trees and trees attempting to emerge from monkeys.
"Is the place full?"
"Yeah."
"Then yep, you can just walk right through and a bot will show you to the next tree."
So Windflower walks out.
Meanwhile, the bot flock continues kamikaze and ranged operations against monkeys and trees and monkeys attempting to emerge from trees and trees attempting to emerge from monkeys.
Monkeys, trees, monkeys emerging from trees, and trees emerging from monkeys abound. Dead monkeys are carted back to trees by other monkeys for raw biomatter, and these monkeys are pretty dense with lots of redundant biology, so they apparently can duplicate even without having to eat anything.
And there are still so many.
And there are still so many.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Look, this isn't solving the underlying problem, which is that Blasto made these things. This - this outbreak is a disaster and he'd need a fragment of one of the organisms to start a dozen more just like it. He was using pheremones last time we busted him, he may still be doing that, can we - track those and find him and get him a ticket to the Birdcage?"
Armsmaster
"If these things were on purpose he already has a ticket to the Birdcage or worse," Armsmaster says between blows with a dozen monkeys. "If you have a suggestion on how to track him I'd love to hear it."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"If we can catch a monkey alive Miracle Max might be able to reverse-engineer the pheromones and get somewhere with that?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah, if I can get one alone so bots can converge on it and lasso it."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I want enough real bots carrying the thing that if you glitch again it doesn't fall," Lorica tells Glam, "but yeah, help me catch..." The swarm picks one. "That. And mind you keep an eye on the containments for the trees Windflower's killing."
Glam
mxglam
"There's a fuzzy limit on how much stuff I can have out at a time, but it's in the several dozens so don't need to worry. And I'm keeping an eye on them," they say, and provide them with a Glam copy they're controlling to help catch the monkey.
...why would they even need that. "I'm just gonna conjure binds made out of something really hard," they say, popping that copy and creating striped binds around the monkey, gagging it, blindfolding it, and tying it up.
...why would they even need that. "I'm just gonna conjure binds made out of something really hard," they say, popping that copy and creating striped binds around the monkey, gagging it, blindfolding it, and tying it up.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Thank you. Can you put it in a bag or something, I don't want to discover it shits tree seeds halfway to Max's."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Robots zoom the monkey to HQ for Max to vivisect or whatever it is he'll wind up doing.
Glam
mxglam
Glam continues aiding in the various fights, containing monkeys with Siberian-binds so they won't escape and so Windflower will be able to kill them. ...do they need to? Maybe if they squeeze a bit... nope, bad idea, tree sprouting, be on fire.
The bots reach HQ without further trouble—apparently whichever mechanism the monkeys use to kill themselves or become trees cannot be activated if they're bound and gagged. That, or this particular specimen lacks that ability.
The bots reach HQ without further trouble—apparently whichever mechanism the monkeys use to kill themselves or become trees cannot be activated if they're bound and gagged. That, or this particular specimen lacks that ability.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The specimen is handed off to Max, who does horrific things to it as fast as he can.
And after about half an hour, during which the heroes slowly but surely continue taking down those trees and chasing monkeys and reducing their numbers, he'll have something to show for his work: while it's not possible to reproduce pheromones themselves, it's possible to manufacture something that mimics the monkeys' receptors and indicates the presence of said pheromones in even pretty small quantities in the air.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Glam, can you get me pheromone-detectors that interface with bots?"
Glam
mxglam
It is, apparently, a chemical substance that reacts to the monkeys' pheromones. Glam invents a bullshit detector that uses the chemical, and starts outfitting bots with it.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
And bots - those that can be spared from the gradually shrinking fight with the trees - go on a Blasto hunt.
There seem to be a few pockets of faint pheromones in some localized spots, including a few that are other hives similar to the giant tree they just found. These hives seem to be mostly content in just existing, at least for now.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Bots monitor them and notify the others so Windflower can be sent in to kill them. That all?
-warehouse!
(Brockton Bay sure does seem to have a lot of those, doesn't it?)
There is a much stronger cloud of the pheromones around it. Not like they were actively spread on it, but more like someone has been using them for a while and they've formed a cloud around the building.
(Brockton Bay sure does seem to have a lot of those, doesn't it?)
There is a much stronger cloud of the pheromones around it. Not like they were actively spread on it, but more like someone has been using them for a while and they've formed a cloud around the building.
Armsmaster
"Approach carefully, watch all exits, avoid detection. Drupe, go to that building. Glam, focus there."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"What about me?" asks Windflower.
"Don't have a kill order on Blasto. Yet," Lorica tells her. "Hang back and kill trees."
"Don't have a kill order on Blasto. Yet," Lorica tells her. "Hang back and kill trees."
Glam
mxglam
Glam creates a few more bots around the building, as well as a couple of copies.
"...if those monkeys could camouflage like that, so can I," they say, and their bots get nigh-invisible, too, as well as the two copies they conjure there.
"...if those monkeys could camouflage like that, so can I," they say, and their bots get nigh-invisible, too, as well as the two copies they conjure there.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Ha. Thank you Glam." Camo bots can approach a leeeeetle closer.
Boarded up windows, but through the cracks bits of a lab very similar to the one they first found Blasto in can be seen.
Armsmaster
"Surround the building with bots, make sure no exit is unwatched. Wait for Drupe to arrive, Dauntless and Velocity should go, too, for mobility in case Blasto tries to es cape. Glam I want your entire attention there when not looking at Windflower's barriers."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Bots converge and swarm as directed, though they keep eyes on the barriers too.
Dauntless
And presently the extant heroes have arrived.
"In position," Dauntless says from a position of cover.
"In position," Dauntless says from a position of cover.
Armsmaster
"Drupe, as soon as you're ready to contain the hybrids, give the others a signal. Glam, block all windows with something sturdier than the boards if you can, and irrespective of that when Drupe gives the signal I want you inside through all exits. You like theatrics, figure out a way to make sure Blasto doesn't even think escape's an option. Dauntless and Velocity, you two are to stay outside and watch the exits, listen for Lorica's bots' instructions on the comm, if anything tries to escape you go after it."
Glam
mxglam
"I'm gonna give the building a black square hat so that all windows are covered by the same thing," Glam announces, because it's only good and proper to inform your team of your tactical maneuvers, of course.
Said hat appears! And before Blasto's hybrids or the Tinker himself can react to the sudden extra measure of darkness, Sadde has two muscled copies tear the garage door apart and one smaller-but-still-brutish copy for each of the other two doors do the same, opening the way for Lorica's bots.
The interior is much the same as the first lab was, except much better outfitted, with much more expensive material and tools. The warehouse has a second floor of metal walkways that's mostly unused, and several hybrids inside various vats. The only macaque ones are a couple of helpers with lab coats, and the extant hybrids are huge bears simultaneously very similar and very different than the ones the hybrids fought earlier. There are several of those—apparently Blasto doesn't want a repeat performance of the last time.
Said hat appears! And before Blasto's hybrids or the Tinker himself can react to the sudden extra measure of darkness, Sadde has two muscled copies tear the garage door apart and one smaller-but-still-brutish copy for each of the other two doors do the same, opening the way for Lorica's bots.
The interior is much the same as the first lab was, except much better outfitted, with much more expensive material and tools. The warehouse has a second floor of metal walkways that's mostly unused, and several hybrids inside various vats. The only macaque ones are a couple of helpers with lab coats, and the extant hybrids are huge bears simultaneously very similar and very different than the ones the hybrids fought earlier. There are several of those—apparently Blasto doesn't want a repeat performance of the last time.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Bots flood in and assess the place and shine some lights on anything that moves or looks like it might start.
Glam
mxglam
Blasto gets over his shock and starts moving—
"Kill order!" Glam makes their copies say at the same time. Blasto freezes, and a new copy appears out of the doorway. The hybrids don't do anything without Blasto's signal, but look very aggressive at the sudden bots and copies. "You do anything and you get one," Glam elaborates, and Blasto sags a little.
"Kill order!" Glam makes their copies say at the same time. Blasto freezes, and a new copy appears out of the doorway. The hybrids don't do anything without Blasto's signal, but look very aggressive at the sudden bots and copies. "You do anything and you get one," Glam elaborates, and Blasto sags a little.
Armsmaster
"Blasto, have you been watching the news?" Armsmaster speaks through the bots.
Blasto flinches. "I—sorta?"
"Those monkeys you released a while back are multiplying and mutating. Are you aware of the PRT's opinions on self-replicating minions?"
"Um."
"Do you know what happened in Ellisburg?"
"Yes...?"
"We will do everything in our power to prevent anything like that from happening again, and I do mean everything." Blasto reacts as if he's been slapped, flinching with his whole body. "So you have two options: you cooperate with us, or you don't. If you don't, we'll deal with it anyway, but you get a one-way ticket to the Birdcage, and don't even think about trying to escape, you are more than outnumbered and outmatched, here."
"Outnumbered?"
"Glam can create an arbitrary number of copies or other objects, including restraints for each and every one of your hybrids," he fibs. "Drupe can control and secure them, Dauntless and Velocity are faster than anything you could hope to create would be, Lorica and her robots have enormous multitasking ability. There is no way you will be able to leave this place."
Blasto looks at the floor. "I was just trying to do research—"
"Too bad," Armsmaster interrupts. "Are you going to cooperate?"
Blasto looks around again, then sighs and says, "Yes," in a small voice.
"I hope you understand that if you try to trick us you will be facing the rest of your life in the Birdcage." Blasto doesn't answer. "Is that understood?" Armsmaster insists. Blasto nods mutely. "Excellent. Lorica, Glam, bring us some of those monkeys, I want to make sure Blasto's not lying to us before using anything he creates on this city."
Blasto flinches. "I—sorta?"
"Those monkeys you released a while back are multiplying and mutating. Are you aware of the PRT's opinions on self-replicating minions?"
"Um."
"Do you know what happened in Ellisburg?"
"Yes...?"
"We will do everything in our power to prevent anything like that from happening again, and I do mean everything." Blasto reacts as if he's been slapped, flinching with his whole body. "So you have two options: you cooperate with us, or you don't. If you don't, we'll deal with it anyway, but you get a one-way ticket to the Birdcage, and don't even think about trying to escape, you are more than outnumbered and outmatched, here."
"Outnumbered?"
"Glam can create an arbitrary number of copies or other objects, including restraints for each and every one of your hybrids," he fibs. "Drupe can control and secure them, Dauntless and Velocity are faster than anything you could hope to create would be, Lorica and her robots have enormous multitasking ability. There is no way you will be able to leave this place."
Blasto looks at the floor. "I was just trying to do research—"
"Too bad," Armsmaster interrupts. "Are you going to cooperate?"
Blasto looks around again, then sighs and says, "Yes," in a small voice.
"I hope you understand that if you try to trick us you will be facing the rest of your life in the Birdcage." Blasto doesn't answer. "Is that understood?" Armsmaster insists. Blasto nods mutely. "Excellent. Lorica, Glam, bring us some of those monkeys, I want to make sure Blasto's not lying to us before using anything he creates on this city."
Armsmaster
The other fights are almost wrapped up. Without Drupe to contain monkeys where Windflower was coming, some of them escaped, but the trees themselves are almost all dead and contained, with only a minimal number of civilian casualties.
Which will, of course, be a PR nightmare.
When the monkey arrives, Blasto is finishing up concocting something. "This is supposed to attract them. They'll be unable to resist following it." To demonstrate, he wafts it about, and the monkeys start struggling. Glam lets one of them go, and it quickly crosses the length of the room to be near Blasto, causing him to yelp and almost lose his balance and fall. "I'm going to make more of this and you can use it to attract the monkeys anywhere in the city."
"How long will this take?" Armsmaster asks.
"For the whole city? An hour."
"See to it. And get rid of your hybrids."
"But—"
"You're under arrest, Blasto, in case it wasn't obvious. There's no but."
"You said I wasn't going to the Birdcage!"
"We will discuss your options once this situation has been resolved and you've been transported to the PHQ, but we clearly cannot let you go."
"I won't make anything that can reproduce!"
"Get to work.."
"But—"
"I'll leave you under Glam and Lorica's supervision and will be joining you myself as soon as I can." And he cuts off transmission.
Blasto sighs and resumes work.
Which will, of course, be a PR nightmare.
When the monkey arrives, Blasto is finishing up concocting something. "This is supposed to attract them. They'll be unable to resist following it." To demonstrate, he wafts it about, and the monkeys start struggling. Glam lets one of them go, and it quickly crosses the length of the room to be near Blasto, causing him to yelp and almost lose his balance and fall. "I'm going to make more of this and you can use it to attract the monkeys anywhere in the city."
"How long will this take?" Armsmaster asks.
"For the whole city? An hour."
"See to it. And get rid of your hybrids."
"But—"
"You're under arrest, Blasto, in case it wasn't obvious. There's no but."
"You said I wasn't going to the Birdcage!"
"We will discuss your options once this situation has been resolved and you've been transported to the PHQ, but we clearly cannot let you go."
"I won't make anything that can reproduce!"
"Get to work.."
"But—"
"I'll leave you under Glam and Lorica's supervision and will be joining you myself as soon as I can." And he cuts off transmission.
Blasto sighs and resumes work.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
A bot lands on each of his shoulders to peer at what he's doing and forward video to Miracle Max for the hope of warning if he tries anything fishy.
Armsmaster
He won't try anything fishy, but he'll eep and almost drop his vials once the bots land on him.
Eventually Armsmaster does arrive, looming over there and watching Blasto work in silence, and eventually Blasto's done with a large batch of the substance. "If you spread this around the city any extant monkeys will follow you."
"Very well. And now you are com—"
Blasto looks around in a panic, reaches inside his lab coat-
Eventually Armsmaster does arrive, looming over there and watching Blasto work in silence, and eventually Blasto's done with a large batch of the substance. "If you spread this around the city any extant monkeys will follow you."
"Very well. And now you are com—"
Blasto looks around in a panic, reaches inside his lab coat-
Armsmaster
Armsmaster sighs and walks towards Blasto, but the two macaque helpers, which had been hanging back, get very agitated by this and start reaching for stuff inside their own lab coats—
Glam
mxglam
Glam binds them with the Siberian-binds (it's so much better to do this with not-quite-people) and they start struggling. "We should probably get rid of the other hybrids," they say, even though said hybrids haven't moved since they arrived.
Armsmaster
"I trust you to deal with that. Lorica, can you outfit your bots with the pheromones? Drupe, the trainyard is a good place to attract them to, wait there for the monkeys Lorica's bots will be bringing and make sure they don't escape. I'm going to bring Blasto into custody."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Can do." Bots fly to and "sip" from the substance in an orderly fashion and head out to lead monkeys to the trainyard.
Glam
mxglam
Glam "deals" with the hybrids, verifying that the macaque ones aren't people in the strictest sense first (how can you even verify that? can they afford the doubt?), then focuses on Windflower's barriers.
Armsmaster
"There are probably monkeys all over the city. Try to cover as much ground as you can," Armsmaster says as he's loading Blasto onto his bike, properly secured.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"...I'll see how far they seem to be able to smell it as I flush them out and spread out if I can."
They seem to be able to smell the pheromones from roughly four blocks away. There is... a worrying number of monkeys hidden around the city. Most of them can barely be called monkeys anymore, with deformities and mutations that make it hard for them to even move. They come from abandoned buildings, attics of houses (with accompanying screams from the people living there), dark alleys, sewers, and other nooks and crannies.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Bots mark trails at four block intervals leading to the trainyard and reassure the civilians in bright calming voices. Lorica doesn't stop looking until she stops finding.
Glam
mxglam
She... might take a while. Brockton Bay is a fairly large city, and there are several monkeys hiding everywhere.
The monkeys that arrive at the trainyard are dealt with by Glam, with some help from Drupe so that they don't escape when they realize what's happening.
The monkeys that arrive at the trainyard are dealt with by Glam, with some help from Drupe so that they don't escape when they realize what's happening.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Has Blasto been taken into custody yet? Can she recall all the bots from the warehouses? For that matter, can Max whip up something to denature Windflower's poisons faster than normal so Glam's attention can be better put to expanding the flock?
Yes, yes, and he'll probably need to know which poisons she used and work on them a little to do that.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Windflower's out of trees to kill. She can head back to HQ to give him samples if he likes.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
In the meantime the bots will leave trails and lure monkeys.
Monkeys will be lured and eventually killed and become goop! Windflower's poisons will be denatured! This whole thing will go well into the night!
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Well, the bots don't have to sleep and Lorica can catnap in her workshop. Glam may have to resort to coffee.
Glam
mxglam
Yeah, so they will.
And eventually, at around four in the morning, they will have run out of monkeys.
And eventually, at around four in the morning, they will have run out of monkeys.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
And in the morning it is Sunday. Lorica, having gone to sleep in her surprisingly cozy armor, is up and wants to make sure they still have Blasto.
They do. He's not the kind of tinker that can get out of his PRT cell using only his fingernails and a pillow.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Good. Any monkeys turn up overnight or did she get them all?
She got them all. Civilians were terrified, and the news is spreading, and the Protectorate is preparing an official statement describing the events and the results. There will be a press conference later today, and all the heroes will be asked to participate.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
What fun. She makes sure the shoulderbot will wake Glam in time and caffeinate them if necessary. Poor Glam.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Still.
She spends the intervening time compiling the highlights of the events for regurgitation if anyone makes her talk, and then software-tinkering.
She spends the intervening time compiling the highlights of the events for regurgitation if anyone makes her talk, and then software-tinkering.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
And she comes out of fugue. (A bot polished her while she was in-fugue so she already looks spiffy.) Is Glam up?
Glam
mxglam
"My costume can do that for me, look," they say, and their costume is glowing. Literally glowing, it's actually emitting some light. "I don't even need to actually be smiling for my mask to show a smile."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"You might have to talk and I can't pass for you like I can for Lorica."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Nobody else has been able to tell the difference for a long time. And your sample size is small."
Armsmaster
For a certain value of exciting, sure.
A lectern has been set up in front of the PHQ, at the top of the stairs to the entrance. Several reporters and curious bystanders are occupying the stairs, taking pictures and recording. Armsmaster walks outside first, followed by the adult Protectorate and then the Wards, surrounded by PRT uniforms. Once they're in position, the reporters stop talking and people listen.
"You all know about the threat the supervillain that calls himself Blasto has posed to this city for the past few months. Yesterday, in an altercation with some of his minions that could have escalated to a scenario not unlike Ellisburg, thanks to the cooperation of all Brockton Bay heroes and even of parahumans from the villain organization known as the Empire Eighty-Eight, we successfully neutralized the threat and captured Blasto, who is currently in custody."
A lectern has been set up in front of the PHQ, at the top of the stairs to the entrance. Several reporters and curious bystanders are occupying the stairs, taking pictures and recording. Armsmaster walks outside first, followed by the adult Protectorate and then the Wards, surrounded by PRT uniforms. Once they're in position, the reporters stop talking and people listen.
"You all know about the threat the supervillain that calls himself Blasto has posed to this city for the past few months. Yesterday, in an altercation with some of his minions that could have escalated to a scenario not unlike Ellisburg, thanks to the cooperation of all Brockton Bay heroes and even of parahumans from the villain organization known as the Empire Eighty-Eight, we successfully neutralized the threat and captured Blasto, who is currently in custody."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
(Yaaaaay, go the crowd. Lorica has Excellent Posture. Windflower is apparently afraid of being in front of crowds and trying to hide behind Glimmer without looking like she's doing it.)
Armsmaster
(Glimmer has her arms folded in a very stoic manner and doesn't react to Windflower trying to hide behind her.)
The reporters start asking lots of questions at the same time, as they are wont to do, and Armsmaster points at one of them. "How can you be sure that you got all of them? Is it possible that some may have escaped?"
"It's of course always possible but—" He starts being drowned with questions before he finishes, so he continues more loudly, "But we are very confident they haven't."
"How can you know that?"
"With Miracle Max's and Blasto's cooperation, we were able to create a type of pheromone that attracts such hybrids to a secluded place and dealt with them. They were unable to resist following it, with Lorica and Glam's help."
"Are you sure you can trust a substance created by a villain?"
"Yes," Armsmaster says, and points at another reporter.
"A question for Lorica?"
Armsmaster looks at her, inquiringly.
The reporters start asking lots of questions at the same time, as they are wont to do, and Armsmaster points at one of them. "How can you be sure that you got all of them? Is it possible that some may have escaped?"
"It's of course always possible but—" He starts being drowned with questions before he finishes, so he continues more loudly, "But we are very confident they haven't."
"How can you know that?"
"With Miracle Max's and Blasto's cooperation, we were able to create a type of pheromone that attracts such hybrids to a secluded place and dealt with them. They were unable to resist following it, with Lorica and Glam's help."
"Are you sure you can trust a substance created by a villain?"
"Yes," Armsmaster says, and points at another reporter.
"A question for Lorica?"
Armsmaster looks at her, inquiringly.
"If I understand correctly, your bots are AI-controlled and not under your direct, personal supervision, right?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I supervise them as a group, but the software makes lower-level decisions."
Armsmaster
"And are you planning on keeping them around patrolling the city all the time, if your claim that Blasto's minions have been neutralized is true?"
"It is," Armsmaster interjects.
The reporter ignores him and continues looking at Lorica.
"It is," Armsmaster interjects.
The reporter ignores him and continues looking at Lorica.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"That's not standard operating procedure except when they're accompanying me or other heroes on ordinary patrols. They're not out anymore now, and won't be unless there's another high alert emergency or I have one bring me takeout."
Armsmaster
Another reporter asks, "Is it true you use that AI on Endbringer fights?"
"And how would you have come by this information?" Armsmaster asks pointedly.
The reporter shrugs nervously. "I heard it somewhere."
"And how would you have come by this information?" Armsmaster asks pointedly.
The reporter shrugs nervously. "I heard it somewhere."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I attend Endbringer fights and bring the bots with me," Lorica says, "if that's what you mean."
Armsmaster
"No, my sources inform me that you also use that to coordinate other heroes through a communicator—"
"Speculation," Armsmaster says.
"So it's not true, then? You don't use an AI comm system?" the reporter insists, still looking at Lorica.
"Speculation," Armsmaster says.
"So it's not true, then? You don't use an AI comm system?" the reporter insists, still looking at Lorica.
Armsmaster
"Then you do use them? Isn't it a bit too much power to have all communication and strategizing happen using a single person's technology and oversight, and a Ward's, no less?"
"This is getting off-topic and speculative, does anyone have a question about the current situation? Yes?" Armsmaster looks at another reporter.
"Do you also use this communication system during your engagements here in Brockton Bay?"
"This is getting off-topic and speculative, does anyone have a question about the current situation? Yes?" Armsmaster looks at another reporter.
"Do you also use this communication system during your engagements here in Brockton Bay?"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Information about our comms is, for strategic reasons, not for general dissemination," Lorica says.
Armsmaster
Armsmaster nods almost imperceptibly at that, then points at another reporter when the current one takes too long to ask another question.
"You and Glam are often seen working together, and they frequently use their power to help yours, so there's been some speculation on the PHO Forums about you two being an item. How much credence should we lend to such speculations?"
"I would like to remind you that these are underage heroes you're speculating about," Armsmaster says sharply. "And this isn't about teenage gossip."
"It's not about gossip! There are legitimate worries that such relationships may compromise the Wards' abilities on the field!"
"You and Glam are often seen working together, and they frequently use their power to help yours, so there's been some speculation on the PHO Forums about you two being an item. How much credence should we lend to such speculations?"
"I would like to remind you that these are underage heroes you're speculating about," Armsmaster says sharply. "And this isn't about teenage gossip."
"It's not about gossip! There are legitimate worries that such relationships may compromise the Wards' abilities on the field!"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"There's a useful power synergy between me and Glam, just like there is between me and Silica - anyone who can operate at a distance given visual feedback can get use out of a bot on the scene and one near them to allow safer remote deployment. It compounds upon itself because my bot network can use Glam's conjurations as field-modifiable reinforcements."
Armsmaster
"So the rumors are false?"
"This line of questioning has lost its relevance. Are there any further questions relating to this incident? Yes," Armsmaster points at yet another reporter, who then proceeds to ask something about Drupe's powers. Another one inquires about containment procedures and how the Protectorate plans to handle similar cases in the future, about Blasto's trial, and so on. They seem to have gotten the hint and stay in-topic, and then the conference's over and the heroes go back inside.
As they do, Armsmaster says to Lorica, quietly, "Good job handling them."
"This line of questioning has lost its relevance. Are there any further questions relating to this incident? Yes," Armsmaster points at yet another reporter, who then proceeds to ask something about Drupe's powers. Another one inquires about containment procedures and how the Protectorate plans to handle similar cases in the future, about Blasto's trial, and so on. They seem to have gotten the hint and stay in-topic, and then the conference's over and the heroes go back inside.
As they do, Armsmaster says to Lorica, quietly, "Good job handling them."
Glam
mxglam
And after the heroes are far enough inside the building that the cameras can't track them anymore, they go their respective ways, some to their patrols, others not.
Glam floats after Lorica.
Glam floats after Lorica.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I hope you weren't hoping that I'd publicly confirm that we're dating during a press conference about a villain apprehension."
Glam
mxglam
"Ha, no," they snort. "I mean, sure, the Forums would explode with speculation and I'm not exactly opposed to publicity, but that's not quite the right kind."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I hate those things. The bot was helping me compose responses without getting distracted or accidentally answering a question just because someone asked it." Sigh.
Glam
mxglam
"I, somewhat predictably, like them a lot. I wish I'd gotten more questions. Or, any questions at all, really. I suppose the one about us dating could've included me but it seemed mostly directed at you, I wonder why."
Glam
mxglam
"Then why did they start with you? Although I suppose being panicked about bot surveillance would do it."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah, I would probably have stepped in if someone had addressed her. Poor kid."
Glam
mxglam
"I would comment that I think she should probably try becoming a civilian but she really helped yesterday."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"She's very handy if you need things dead and have a way to contain the poison. Just doesn't come up all that often when you're a hero type."
Glam
mxglam
"Well, even when you're a villain, doing that would be breaking the unwritten rules ninety percent of the time."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah, she'd have to be an extremely scary villain and then someone would shoot her." Sigh.
Glam
mxglam
"If she knew how to properly leverage her power, though, she might be able to not be shot and she'd be terrifying."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I'm glad we find a way to make her feel heroic on occasion, all things considered."
Glam
mxglam
"Mmhm. I wonder if it might've helped if Armsmaster had made that point to the press, that it was in large part thanks to her that it all worked out."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I think he may consider her power in general bad PR. As a factor he probably wasn't considering, I'd be worried if I heard about it what exactly was keeping your constructs in place and how reliable they were."
Glam
mxglam
"Oh, yeah. Though I think people, at least in Brockton Bay, have probably pretty much accepted that I can just conjure whatever."
Glam
mxglam
"Mmhm. There was a lot of activity on the Forums when I released the video conjuring a copy. There had been speculation, what with people sometimes seeing me on two patrols at the same time. I just wish the Forums weren't so... insular."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah, and they're pretty inaccessible for anyone who'd just want to pop in for a bit of trivia. The wiki's better but still leans kind of jargon-heavy."
Glam
mxglam
"I wonder if there's a way to make it better. Perhaps with an introduction board? That had a few sticky posts, like 'Welcome! Here's some basic info' or 'Trivia' or 'Jargon explanation' or 'Cape info' or something."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Maybe I should have the bot make thread summaries for popular threads so people can read half a page and then jump in knowing what's been going on."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yes it is. But there's not currently apparatus for that so it'd need buy-in from the admins."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Bot's gonna suggest it. It's got lots of spare processor time when it's not operating a trebled flock in an emergency."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Hey, if you think of a way to run your power on software lemme know..."
Glam
mxglam
They snort. "My power seems to be wholly immune to attempts at using anything other than myself as its lens."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yep. At least you can offload some of the fine control to the bot even if you have to do all the conjuration."
Glam
mxglam
"You know, I wonder if a simulated brain that was like mine, corona pollentia and all, would be able to use my powers."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I don't think I can biotinker enough to simulate a meat brain."
Glam
mxglam
"Yeah, I wouldn't expect you to, this was merely academic interest. I probably can't conjure anything that'd count, either."
Glam
mxglam
Shrug. "Not necessarily. I do want to do it a few more times and see if we can reach a large enough sample size. It could have been luck, after all."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"That's going to take a lot of time investment and you do know I update the software sometimes, right?"
Glam
mxglam
"Right, but you also said you have no idea what you would even need to update to cover for whatever flaw it was that I found." Pause. "Which is I suppose evidence that it was just luck."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I mean, my best guess is that the bot should act less conservatively in general but that's only a guess."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"When it's not quite sure if I would, say, swear, or gesture, or suggest an idea, it defaults to not doing so unless there's some other reason it should. So overall it does those things a little less. It's also not quite as creative as I am so it does come up with fewer novel ideas in the first place."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah. But this doesn't come up in most casual conversation in a statistically interesting way."
Glam
mxglam
"Well, doesn't it? Perhaps there are very subtle ways in which you creatively choose what to say?"
Glam
mxglam
"Well, isn't it? You didn't seem to think it very plausible that your superior creativity would be something one would notice before I pointed out its possibility, so it's not a likely hypothesis a priori."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I could have been wrong, though, I don't talk to myself in the way that other people talk to me."
Glam
mxglam
"Yeah. And now that you say this, the obvious trick to distinguish you two would be to just talk about something that requires creativity. I wouldn't even need to talk to both of you."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"You know, under normal circumstances the bot and I consult each other a lot."
Glam
mxglam
"Which is to say that under normal circumstances there is very little fact of the matter as to which of you is the real you, you're basically the same person."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Eh, we're - jointly interacting with the world through one channel," she says.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It can't read my mind any more than anything else can and I only read its mind when I'm not doing anything else?"
Glam
mxglam
"Right, but I mean, what would the actual difference be? You'd be coaching it, it'd be coaching you, both things sound like you talking to me while the bot helps."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Oh. If I'm talking to you, the bot doesn't vet my compositions, I just say them. It might present me with the Wikipedia page on the topic of conversation or a conversation transcript from last week or something, or I might subvocalize it to give me a statistic, but I mostly just talk with a really convenient reference on hand. If it's talking, it may send something it wants to say to me for vetting but at normal conversational speed I can seldom make a concrete decision on that; more often it's reading my facial expression while I listen in to guess what my opinion might be and generating its own sentences based on that and saying them without me having time to read them first."
Glam
mxglam
"Hmmm. That sounds more challenging, and also not exactly the actual test, which was to see if your bot could properly pass for you, so if we do that it's a different test and the subject is me instead of the bot."
Glam
mxglam
"Well, the point of the test was checking whether your bot could flawlessly imitate you. If you start coaching it and vice-versa it becomes a test on whether I can tell you apart anyway."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"...I was listening to the conversation and it would have been monitoring my facial expressions during."
Glam
mxglam
"Still need to repeat the experiment and validate my results, especially the last part."
The week trudges along without much further ado. No new hybrids emerge, the heroes are praised by the public for averting a terrible crisis, the deaths are mourned, speculation picks up, people note that Armsmaster mentioned a lot of teamwork but for all that the heroes aren't very visible, and the end consequence is that on Friday afternoon the Wards are to visit a school. So, they have one day to prepare a topic to talk about for half an hour each, and will also have to socialize and make the children and younger teens like them.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Half an hour. Geez. Lorica throws something together encouraging the kids to consider a career in technology.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"To think of something and write up a presentation. And they should excuse Windflower, because can you imagine Windflower trying to do public speaking, poor thing."
Glam
mxglam
"Oh, right, I thought you'd meant longer than half an hour. And yeah, poor Windflower. I wonder if we can do something, she doesn't have the most sympathetic of powers, either, this is not going to help her image."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"The bot can write her something and make her a slideshow if she has a topic, but she'd still have to stand up there and talk."
Glam
mxglam
"I don't know yet! I was trying to think of a way to instil on them the same sense of wonder comic book enthusiasts had for superheroes before we were real."
Glam
mxglam
"Like, before superheroes existed, before Scion, there were comic books and people were pretty crazy about them and super interested in them, a little bit how regular cape geeks are nowadays but not exactly, and—basically, I want to somehow instil some cape geekiness on at least some of those kids."
Glam
mxglam
"A few reasons. One, personal PR. Two, hero PR. Cape business is typically seen as this distant background knowledge by most people, bringing some more excitement into it would help. Three, if any of them trigger, they're more likely to join us instead of some gang if they see it as cool and exciting. Four, there are hopelessly few people actually going into cape research, and it's something I'd like to encourage, too."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Fair enough. But if you're going for flash and bang the bot's writing style probably won't help."
Glam
mxglam
"Hmm, yeah, maybe. I mean, I think if I can come up with an actual topic that will achieve my objective and that Branding won't object to I can probably invent the presentation, my power's made for this."
Glam
mxglam
"I have this notion of starting it boring and black-on-white and then surprise everyone with 'suddenly interesting.'"
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"You have to manage actual interestingness to pull that off, be warned."
Glam
mxglam
"Well, yes, obviously, thus my being stumped. It may be that mine is too ambitious a goal to be achieved."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Well, come up with a fallback if you aren't visited by the muse of half-hour presentations."
Glam
mxglam
"Of course. I wonder if I could make a presentation about trigger events, and different types of powers, and conjure copies to demonstrate my points."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Maybe too fact-sheet-y? I don't know exactly how you plan to present it."
Glam
mxglam
"Hmm, well, the exciting part was supposed to be sort of a game of sorts, maybe start with a trigger story, and then have the kids suggest powers that that trigger could generate, with the appropriate drawbacks, and make a copy with those powers, and then maybe talk about the psychological aspect of it."
Glam
mxglam
"Nnnno, they aren't, but that's a bit of the point. It's, hmm, the kind of thing every cape goes through to get their powers, it's a way to understand why capes are the way they are a bit? Also to break a bit from the perpetual monotonous Be A Good Student, Don't Do Drugs, Don't Jaywalk talks these kids get."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah, I just mean, don't terrify the elementary schoolers."
Glam
mxglam
"...I'll try? I mean, I triggered when I was seven, I may not have the best thermometer for that."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Probably don't use your own example, then, make something up."
Glam
mxglam
"And I'll probably need to clear with Branding. It's not like the existence of trigger events is exactly a secret, but your average cape geek doesn't really know about it."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah. Which is weird. I mean, most people won't bring up theirs since it's personal but the phenomenon seems like it should be better known."
Glam
mxglam
"It's... bad PR, perhaps, that literally every superpowered person also happens to have some form of horrible trauma in their past."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah, I guess. But a lot of people who don't have powers have been through shit too."
Glam
mxglam
"They have, but they don't also happen to be able to," and they produce a handgun, floating in front of them, "at will. Or," and there's a Siberian lookalike, standing behind them.
Glam
mxglam
"So when you think that Eidolon is probably a PTSD case waiting to snap, well. It's no wonder the PRT might want to keep this on the down low."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Not everyone who's traumatized gets PTSD and most people with PTSD are not going to 'snap'."
Glam
mxglam
"Right, yes, but this is about public perception. Dealing with mental issues of any kind is not our society's forte, between completely ignoring that depression is a thing and considering emotional abuse to not be abuse at all, so... it's not hard to imagine a situation where public opinion is suddenly against the heroes because of that."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah. So... tread carefully, get Branding's okay. Before you invest too much effort into this idea for the presentation."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Email's probably fine, if it's complicated enough they can call you in."
Glam
mxglam
"Yeah, fair." Floating handgun and Siberian disappear, new copy appears. "You. Go to our room and email them."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Are your copies any good at composing emails if you're not thinking closely about it?"
Glam
mxglam
"They're good at anything I can do automatically or without planning much, or any very obvious actions I would take. They're... less good than your bots at being creative," they explain as the copy goes do that. "If I already have the email skeleton in mind, it's me enough to know how I'd phrase it and do that."
Glam
mxglam
"Since I'm also expecting it to come here with the reply should it receive it in the next half hour, it'll do that." Pause. "I have no idea what it'll do while I'm not watching."
Glam
mxglam
They laugh. "Do that! And, erm, don't tell me what it's doing, that'll probably ruin the experiment."
Glam
mxglam
The copy is going to Sadde's room! It looks over its shoulder when it notices the bot approaching and asks, "What's up?"
Glam
mxglam
"Okay."
They reach Glam's room and start booting the computer. When it boots, the copy start composing the email.
They reach Glam's room and start booting the computer. When it boots, the copy start composing the email.
Glam
mxglam
So the copy composes the email outlining the idea, and it looks very much like Glam was the one who did it, and hits send.
And then it—twiddles thumbs. It looks very much like a bored Glam who doesn't have a whole lot to do, in spite of having a computer in front of them.
And then it—twiddles thumbs. It looks very much like a bored Glam who doesn't have a whole lot to do, in spite of having a computer in front of them.
Glam
mxglam
Yup. Twiddling thumbs. The copy acts completely uninterestingly until it receives an email back, reads it, and starts back toward Lorica's workshop.
Glam
mxglam
The copy has arrived, and becomes perceptibly livelier once inside!
"Branding says it's not a secret per se, but if you must include triggers in your account try not to scare the children and make some up that aren't very bad nor real. They also recommend trying to go the route of 'so you got new powers you didn't choose, what do' instead of mentioning triggers at all," the copy explains. "And they added a line wondering if you didn't want to take the chance to educate the kids on trans issues."
"Branding says it's not a secret per se, but if you must include triggers in your account try not to scare the children and make some up that aren't very bad nor real. They also recommend trying to go the route of 'so you got new powers you didn't choose, what do' instead of mentioning triggers at all," the copy explains. "And they added a line wondering if you didn't want to take the chance to educate the kids on trans issues."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Might be easier to compose the latter presentation but there's less flashy special effects."
Glam
mxglam
"Also it's boring," Glam says grimacing.
Copy switches to becoming another Glam-spokesperson: "I don't want to do activism for trans stuff, especially given all the trouble this has given me."
Original: "And this may be a bit selfish, given that I kinda am in a uniquely, uh, privileged position for that, but."
Copy switches to becoming another Glam-spokesperson: "I don't want to do activism for trans stuff, especially given all the trouble this has given me."
Original: "And this may be a bit selfish, given that I kinda am in a uniquely, uh, privileged position for that, but."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Weren't you arguing about being a role model when you were trying to convince Yates?"
Glam
mxglam
"Yes, that was what I was arguing," Copy agrees.
"But I was just correctly predicting that associating Glam with a single gender would cause me dysphoria," Original completes.
"I mean, I do like being a role model, but I don't want this to be my point," the Copy adds, squirming a bit uncomfortably.
"But I was just correctly predicting that associating Glam with a single gender would cause me dysphoria," Original completes.
"I mean, I do like being a role model, but I don't want this to be my point," the Copy adds, squirming a bit uncomfortably.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"You're giving one presentation," says Lorica. "You don't have to be all about its topic. But obviously it's up to you."
Glam
mxglam
"I know, what I mean is that this would be the second time there's this public thing about me and transness, and it might become a stereotype or make me look a bit one-track."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"This one's smaller scale, although I suppose I can't guarantee no one will decide to televise it."
Glam
mxglam
"But as of right now basically the only source of information on me, so that when I'm a famous household name the media will get their stuff from there."
"Do you think I should do that instead of the powers thing?" copy wonders.
"Do you think I should do that instead of the powers thing?" copy wonders.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Oh. There's advantages but I can see not wanting to be one-note? You haven't touched it in, say, your webseries though..."
Glam
mxglam
"Mmhm, but the webseries has the direct purpose of, you know, making people expect me to be generally awesome and invincible," original explains.
"Whereas this would only have that expectation happen as a side effect," copy adds.
"Not to mention that, again, it's sort of expected for capes to go to schools and talk about Social Stuff, and even if talking about trans stuff in particular might be novel, it's unlikely to be especially engaging in the way preternatural powers are."
"On the other hand, is that really true? It's not like there's a whole lot of visibility for trans issues the same way there is for cape stuff, and kids might be genuinely curious about this as something more mundane and accessible than capes."
"Whereas this would only have that expectation happen as a side effect," copy adds.
"Not to mention that, again, it's sort of expected for capes to go to schools and talk about Social Stuff, and even if talking about trans stuff in particular might be novel, it's unlikely to be especially engaging in the way preternatural powers are."
"On the other hand, is that really true? It's not like there's a whole lot of visibility for trans issues the same way there is for cape stuff, and kids might be genuinely curious about this as something more mundane and accessible than capes."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"My presentation is about how cool jobs in tech are," she says. "Teach yourselves to program, kids, I'm literally a software tinker and I use shareware all the time, make a difference, you know."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I'm telling the kids that it's smart to get engineering jobs; you're sorta elsewhere employed."
Glam
mxglam
"Well, yeah, but like, learning programming could be fun. I like math, it's sorta the same thing."
"Eeeeeh," says copy.
"Eeeeeh," says copy.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I can't comment on how similar they are for people who don't have a completely unfair boost at only one of those things..."
Glam
mxglam
"I mean, I can't wrap my head around it! Like, is the knowledge there or isn't it? And where is it, if it's not there? And how can the same tiny brain part give someone conditional preternatural programming knowledge and someone else the ability to conjure arbitrary solid illusions?"
Glam
mxglam
"No, I'm just whining about it. Maybe I should mention that in my presentation, but I don't know how to get people generally interested in science."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
Snort. "And if they become geologists it won't help at all."
Glam
mxglam
"Well, I meant mostly like talking about the state of the art in cape science and hoping the kids get excited about that science."
Glam
mxglam
"Nope it's not!" original agrees.
"Lots of birds with one stone, there, with a power-oriented presentation," copy adds.
"Lots of birds with one stone, there, with a power-oriented presentation," copy adds.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"If you want it that complicated the bot will be better used as an editor, not a first drafter."
Glam
mxglam
"I don't think I'll actually even talk that much about the corona pollentia, I'll talk more about triggers, mention that they only happen to people with the corona pollentia which, how curious, is the same in everyone and yet people get different powers, no more than a throwaway line, then if anyone has questions it's Mx. Exposition time."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"...'Mx' is really a terrible title. I mean, I guess 'Miss' is also a separate word but it has the advantage of being known in both forms reasonably well."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Like, 'excuse me, miss, you dropped your pen' and 'I'm going to miss my flight'. Whereas the syllable 'mix' appears in a bunch of words meaning, exclusively, 'combine'."
Glam
mxglam
"Oh. I think, in this case, it also means combine."
"Gendery wendery ball of stuff," copy supplies.
"Gendery wendery ball of stuff," copy supplies.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"I mean, that makes sense as - I think - a false etymology - but if you say 'Mx. Exposition', you don't mean 'Combine Exposition'."
Glam
mxglam
"Oh, sure, but I'm not gonna present as Mx. Exposition, I was just referencing the fact that I'm going to be presenting stuff that wasn't in the main presentation and. Stuff."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Yeah, I know, I was going off on a tangent about how the title's confusing when it comes up and will probably continue to be so for decades if not longer."
Glam
mxglam
"Yeeeeah, it's not great," they admit.
"I wonder if the trans community's gonna come up with something to replace that. I mean, this one was invented in the seventies and hasn't been replaced yet, but..." copy muses.
"I wonder if the trans community's gonna come up with something to replace that. I mean, this one was invented in the seventies and hasn't been replaced yet, but..." copy muses.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Might not even help, part of the confusion just is that it's new and not well-popularized."
Glam
mxglam
"Go email Branding and tell them about the corona pollentia idea and what we'll do," they instruct copy, who nods and goes.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"Bot says that when it's not doing anything in particular it just acts bored," Lorica mentions.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The bot projects a slightly accelerated video of Bored Glam Projection.
Glam
mxglam
"Huh. That's interesting. I'd somehow expected it to become like a motionless robot or some such."
Glam
mxglam
"Maybe that expectation conflicted with some more subconscious expectation that it behave like, well, me. Or something."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
"It does look a lot like you might if you were that devoid of things to do and the wherewithal to see something to do."
Glam
mxglam
"Heh. That it does, I suppose, though being without the wherewithal to see something to do, with my computer right there..."
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The school visit rolls around. Lorica's supposed to go first because captain. Fine. She goes up and the bot mostly reads it in her voice and she gestures at appropriate moments.
Glam
mxglam
Her presentation's well-received enough. Next's Echo, who talks about self-defense, then Rewind, who presents stuff about gangs, then Glimmer, who talks about Philadelphia, then Glam. They walk into the small auditorium, silent, and look at their audience, propping their head on their elbows, leaning on a lectern they conjured.
The audience looks back. They've been sitting here kind of a while now and are fidgety. Somebody is surreptitiously eating a sandwich.
Glam
mxglam
"Bored, are you?" they ask softly, but their voice comes from tiny surreptitious speakers at the backs of a few chairs, in spots no one was paying attention to, as if they were right there over their shoulders.
Glam
mxglam
"Sorry about your sandwich, kid," they say. "I'd offer to conjure you another one, but my conjured food tends to disappear after a few bites. Terrible weakness, I know."
Sandwich kid gets a hissed reprimand from one of the chaperon teachers and scoops the remains of his sandwich into its bag and puts it away.
Glam
mxglam
"If you had a parahuman power," they ask, still leaning on the conjured lectern, "what would you like it to be?"
...The kids are not sure if they're supposed to answer that. They're probably not all supposed to talk at once, right?
Glam
mxglam
His voice also comes from a bunch of speakers everywhere.
"Hi, Todd! D'you wanna be a superhero?"
"Hi, Todd! D'you wanna be a superhero?"
Glam
mxglam
"Oh, that's cool! Is one of—" Pause. Shake head. "I have a time limit, we'll chat later if you want." They straighten up. "Does anyone here want to be a superhero? Or, perhaps, a supervillain? Just raise your hands if you do."
There were a couple of twitches when Glam said "superhero" but nobody seems to want to own up to "or, perhaps, a supervillain".
Glam
mxglam
They smile, having expected this. "Unfortunately we don't really choose to have powers. And while the Protectorate is currently pretty neutral about 'rogues,' don't you find it interesting that so few parahumans choose to become those?" They sit cross-legged in the air, and gesture idly to make the lectern disappear. "Can anyone here name a single rogue?"
Glam
mxglam
"Oh, alright, I'm defeated," they say, throwing their hands up dramatically. "Ooor maybe not! Can you nnnaaaame... five rogues?"
Glam
mxglam
"Aha! I win!" they say, grinning, then clear their throat. "On the other hand, I bet some of you have at some point owned Alexandria lunch boxes or Armsmaster underwear, and I doubt none of you have speculated on who would win between Eidolon and Legend."
The projector finally comes to life when Glam mentions Alexandria lunch boxes, and starts showing pictures of various heroes, changing from one to another every five seconds. As they do, a few copies of heroes (Alexandria amongst them, naturally) start walking (or flying) in from the back of the auditory, floating above the students or joining Glam at the front.
"And it's not just a matter of PR, although we must commend the Protectorate there. It seems that, for better or for worse," and at the 'for worse' pictures (mostly blurred, from a distance) of various villains start replacing the heroes', "parahumans tend towards conflict." No copies of the villains show up.
The projector finally comes to life when Glam mentions Alexandria lunch boxes, and starts showing pictures of various heroes, changing from one to another every five seconds. As they do, a few copies of heroes (Alexandria amongst them, naturally) start walking (or flying) in from the back of the auditory, floating above the students or joining Glam at the front.
"And it's not just a matter of PR, although we must commend the Protectorate there. It seems that, for better or for worse," and at the 'for worse' pictures (mostly blurred, from a distance) of various villains start replacing the heroes', "parahumans tend towards conflict." No copies of the villains show up.
Glam
mxglam
"Does anyone here know how people get powers?" Copies have stopped walking in, only about a dozen of them, but the pictures are still going. The speakers have also disappeared from behind the kids.
Glam
mxglam
"Mmm, that's one theory, yeah. No one knows if Scion was just the first parahuman, or whether he was the origin of powers, or both, or neither, really. Scion himself doesn't seem to actually have all powers, though, unless he's holding back, which is reasonable—no hero or villain really shows all their cards. But my question is at a lower level—how does a person without powers get them?"
"They happen when something bad happens to you. Except not if you go doing dangerous things on purpose, then it doesn't work."
Glam
mxglam
"Got it in one. Those moments are called trigger events, and no one really understands them. Now kid, I want you to suggest me a trigger event. Don't need to be specific or very detailed, something more general." The copies are congregating behind Glam and start disappearing there one by one, and the projector is blank again.
Glam
mxglam
"Car crash, then. Now what's bad about it for you—is it the physical aspect, being hurt, or is it something more mental? Well, I presume everything's bad about it, but what would stand out, for you?"
Glam
mxglam
"Hmm, yeah, fair enough. Let's go with mental, to keep things interesting. It's the fear, the anticipation that's the worst part. So, powers are related to trigger events. Physical trauma, physical power; mental trauma, mental power. Trumps tend to have trigger events related to other parahumans, tinkers tend to be working on long-term projects, masters tend to feel isolated, etc. So, let's see if we can come up with a power for that trigger event. Anyone has any suggestions?"
"Con...trolling traffic lights?" says the kid, seeming to realize halfway through the first word that this is a dumb power.
Glam
mxglam
"That's promising! Shaker powers tend to come from more abstract environmental threats, so this would pit her," they gesture at the girl who suggested the car crash, "against the world, blaming the circumstances of traffic for the crash. Anyone want to expand and generalize on that, or perhaps suggest an alternative?"
Glam
mxglam
"Powers seem to depend on what your trigger event was like to you and on who you are, in a way, not just on what actually happened. There's, of course, a lot of speculation, especially because us parahumans tend to like our masks," they say, tapping the glass of theirs. "Controlling traffic lights isn't exactly a power in itself, since powers tend to be much more general than parahumans let on or believe they are. What kind of power could have controlling traffic lights as a subpart? Controlling electronics, perhaps? Controlling the flow of information, controlling light..." they trail off invitingly.
Glam
mxglam
"The perfect lockpick, nothing can stand in her way, not even people! If she goes somewhere, the person will find themself suddenly diverted for some reason they can't quite remember; locks unlock, barriers dissolve, nothing stands in her way. But there's a catch!"
Glam
mxglam
"There's always a catch," they say, shrugging a bit helplessly. "So. She has to concentrate, actively, in order to not use her power. Otherwise it's always on, clicking locks and giving people she crosses paths with the strangest feeling of déjà vu."
Glam
mxglam
"So she triggers, this mysterious little organ inside her brain called corona pollentia, bafflingly identical in functionality if not in size and location to an equivalent one in the brains of every other parahuman, is activated, and she has powers." They look directly at her, still sitting cross-legged in the air. "What do you do? Do you hide your powers? Do you join the Protectorate? Do you strike solo as an independent hero, or perhaps a rogue? Maybe, even, a villain?"
Glam
mxglam
"Which is incentive to join the Protectorate! After all, they can help cover any slip-ups. Or, perhaps, go into a life of villaining, unable to keep a secret identity for any extended length of time. Being a rogue, out with your power, could be a possibility, but there's quite a risk from people who would like to use you—a bit like the way tinkers are treated. That's not fair, but we don't really choose our powers when we trigger, and we're often dealt similarly unfair hands. Parahumans who look like they have no weaknesses are certainly hiding them, and fighting other parahumans is as much an exercise in information-gathering as in tactical and technical skills."
"Didn't you use to be a rogue?" somebody calls out.
The audience seems to be more interested in the answer to this question than most of the preceding events.
The audience seems to be more interested in the answer to this question than most of the preceding events.
Glam
mxglam
"Honestly, being unregistered and independent's not really worth it. There's stigma, heroes and villains don't like you much, you don't really get anything out of it—I used to have a part-time job, now I have a fairly generous allowance. I could've merc'd it but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work out, not to mention that it's technically illegal." Shrug. "Now I got the weight of the Protectorate behind me, all their resources, and my fa—emoji is in posters and T-shirts, making daring poses." They stand up and look into the distance in a superman pose.
Glam
mxglam
"'Cause there are a few drawbacks—having to patrol according to strict schedules and having someone else in charge of my image being some of the chief ones—and I was weighing them too heavily. I guess I could say I was scared of, sorta, losing freedom, in a way?"
Glam
mxglam
"Well, yeah, naturally, I do have to patrol, and my image does have to go through PR and Branding, but if I didn't think the tradeoff was worth it I wouldn't be floating here, talking to you."
Glam
mxglam
"We-ell, I had some vague plans about asking y'all about trigger events and powers and maybe conjure some copies with those powers, but we're running out of time." They sit cross-legged in the air again. "My goal here was trying to teach you-all a bit about how capes start their careers and what's involved and the psychology, and maybe tempt some of you into research to figure out what the heck's going on. I do hope I've achieved it, but I also hope you enjoyed it. Weeee have time for more questions if you have them, or perhaps one more create-a-power session if we're quick about it. What do you prefer?"
"Do you think all of the capes that there are definitely have secret weaknesses or just most of them?"
Glam
mxglam
"Hmmm, hard to say, because not all weaknesses are easily perceived as such, in the power itself. We know about more than a few broken villains, whose only notable weakness is their lack of mental stability. Other powers have more debatable ones, like the way Kaiser takes a longer time to make larger, more resistant structures, or the way Lung needs to be in the thick of battle to even activate his full arsenal. And given the way powers work, I wouldn't be too surprised if I found out that, say, Legend didn't have one he chose to hide. But I'd be a little bit surprised."
Glam
mxglam
"Maybe his weakness is that he forgot how to speak," Glam shrugs. "Or that he thinks sometimes rescuing kittens from trees takes priority over whatever-the-heck else's going on in the world." They shake their head. "Honestly, if Scion is a parahuman, and I have no hypotheses to offer if he's not, then he probably got the short end of the stick when it comes to the whole," they gesture vaguely around their head.
Glam
mxglam
"Well, the obvious one is that he can only hold on to two to four powers at a time and it takes a while for him to change them, though I guess that one's more debatable." And there is, of course, the other one that anyone paying attention (meaning about seventeen people worldwide) would notice, but this they do not mention.
Glam
mxglam
"Of course he could be hiding stuff under that mysterious hood, his whole schtick is the dark brooding mysterious, who knows what secrets he hides."
Glam
mxglam
"In that case I'm done. I think there's a couple of Wards yet to present, and then they'll have us stay around to socialize and stuff, so if you're not sick to death of hero-wannabes barely older than yourselves pretending they know what they're talking about, I guess I'll see you then!"
Glam
mxglam
Good, Glam likes this kind of thing.
Now the only Wards who haven't presented yet are Silica and Windflower, who the Branding department decided should present together because Windflower on her own would probably not work too well.
Now the only Wards who haven't presented yet are Silica and Windflower, who the Branding department decided should present together because Windflower on her own would probably not work too well.
Glam
mxglam
And Glam is their usual self, a description of which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Isabella Marie Swan ∫ "Lorica"
thinkering
The kids are mostly trending towards "hanging out near heroes trying to touch their costumes, not saying very much" but there are chatty ones who want demonstrations of power use and to receive firsthand stories of various news items. Lorica's pretty willing to have the small handful of bots she brought obey requests for tricks.