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lung, meet rewind
Sadde and Bell in Worm
Permalink Mark Unread

She gets the note just before lunch. She's in the PHQ in less than twenty minutes, then she knocks on Piggot's door politely.

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"Come in."

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She slides into Piggot's room silently, takes a seat, and carefully places a small wooden box and a note on the desk in front of Piggot.

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"...What is it, Rewind?"

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"I believe," she says in a strained voice, "that my parents have been kidnapped by Lung. This note and the contents of this box are the reason why I believe that."

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Piggot examines the note.

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It's handwritten, and it contains a time and address, as well as the words 'come alone' and 'do not inform the heroes.'

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She glances up at Rewind, then opens the box.

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There's a pinky finger inside it, neatly cut and cauterised. Its nail is polished and painted a soft pink, and it's small and feminine.

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Piggot puts the cover back on the box and looks Rewind in the eye. "You think it's your mother's."

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"Yes."

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"We can't accumulate a reputation for responding to threats like this. It encourages the tactic."

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"In his case it isn't a threat, it's his thing! It's how he recruits other people, he hurts their family and friends."

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"Making his thing an effective way to draw heroes to his chosen battlefield violates the same principle."

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"He only knows my secret identity, it's not like he can make this threat more than once!"

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"If he -"

"Send a copy," chirps Rewind's shoulderbot in Lorica's voice. "Bots can feed what's going on into her helmet and she can virtual reality it with them feeding reactions to the copy suit, Glam can dupe her power."

"...That's very clever, Lorica," says Piggot, pinching the bridge of her nose, "but Lung is not operating by the convention according to which it is unthinkable to demand someone unmask."
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"See, there are ways to not have my parents tortured and killed by the maniac! Can't we at least, like, have a meeting? Before just dismissing my parents out of hand? They didn't sign up for this, and it works just as well to make our point if we kick that fucker's ass when he tries to blackmail us. I already did the clever thing and actually told you guys about it instead of doing what he wanted."

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"The robot cannot, I believe, control a copy of you outside your suit, which Lung may well demand to see."

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"I'm sure Glam can deal with that, right?" she asks the shoulderbot.

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"Copies can do body language. Long as the suit's there to feed video."

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"There you have it, then," she says, as if the matter's settled.

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"I will hear a proposal," Piggot says. "More detailed than 'continue to use Glam for everything'."

"My workshop," shoulderbot tells Rewind, "we'll hammer it out."
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"Fine. Thank you, ma'am."

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Piggot nods stiffly.

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She makes her way to Lorica's workshop.

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Lorica's got a shoulderbot-view of the note and box up on the wall and she's scrolling through information that's going past on the wall. "Glam'll be here in a sec. Might want to tap Dad too."

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"Should we get Armsmaster? I know technically Piggot outranks him but..."

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"For strategic purposes or because you've got an idea for deploying him or because he's got more practice arguing with her?"

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"...the last part."

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"Any point to bringing him in before we have something for him to argue, then?"

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"I guess not."

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"Glam, hurry up," Lorica adds, and their shoulderbot relays that, "we're on a deadline."

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And with the speed of narration, Glam shows up.

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"Okay, so, I've got as far as 'how not to ignore the message nor actually send Rewind in person to Lung', shoulderbot should've told you, but I need some exciting bullshit for what to do after that, what've you got?"

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"Um? Well, what's the actual goal here? Rescuing Rewind's parents, right?"

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"Right."

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"So... we need to figure out how to get Lung to show us them."

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"Well, he probably has to produce evidence they're alive on demand if he wants her to cooperate on anything."

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"Yeah. Okay, let's see, you know Lung best, what can you tell us about him?" they ask Rewind.

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"He's... all about fear. He says, fear of the known and the unknown, something like that, and you have to balance them? But he's not really very smart, and he's really proud and kinda relies on being the scariest motherfucker around."

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"So he might try to hold out on you if he's having a 'fear of the unknown' day, but there's 'not smart' and then there's 'kidnap parents, do not deploy them as leverage'."

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"What I mean is that most people don't defy him, and he won't really make the smartest move if someone does, so if at some point the smartest thing he could do is 'keep my parents alive' that may not be the thing he will do."

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"Well," says Lorica, "if your copy shows up to the meeting and doesn't get evidence they're alive at that time, we can abort - but if he does produce the evidence we need something intelligent to do with it."

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"Hmm, where does the address Rewind got lead anyway? I bet it's a warehouse."

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"Yup," confirms the bot.

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"Okay, so, Rewind arrives, is Lung waiting for her?"

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"He could be waiting and big..."

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"But then that's no leverage at all. He has to show you your parents are alive and can be hurt, otherwise you have no reason to whatever. Unless he just wants to bait you."

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"Which he might!"

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"But in that case it doesn't really matter, does it, we send a copy, he'll be big and evil, the copy disappears, he gets nothing. Unless he makes you wait ten minutes before showing up to try to tear you to shreds."

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"He can't really show up big unless he was already in a fight. But there's no plan there, right? If he just wants to bait me then nothing I do will save my parents."

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"Okay, so, if he's just baiting you, sending a copy loses us nothing and gains him nothing. If he isn't, he'll need to show you your parents, and he'll either bring them with him or, like, get you in communication, like via video or telephone or something."

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"Don't settle for a recording. Has to be real-time demonstrated somehow. I don't want to assume anyone's too dumb to record prisoners for a while before disposing of them."

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"Yeah. He needs to let you interact with them somehow, and preferably via video or in person."

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"Maybe we can get a location off the video feed, if it's a feed. I've been working on better teleport pathing for Dad, might be able to get him in there without too many false starts."

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"If it's a feed I can just conjure something through it that we'd be able to notice and they wouldn't, like a locator or something."

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"Okay but if it's in person he can just fry them right there the second he notices something's up."

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"Does he have enough reaction time to fry Dad popping in and out again? Dad can take two passengers at once unless your parents are jointly more than four hundred pounds."

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"I don't know. He might."

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"Supposing Lung brings your parents in person, it's probably better if you arrive, boop him away from them, boop them healed of any damage, and then let them be carried off by Transit, I think."

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"Rewind's touch-range and Dad's not. And Lung has complete control of where he spends the prior ten minutes."

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"She just needs to make him confused enough that she has time to heal them and Transit can get them. But what do you mean, he's not touch range?"

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"Dad has to be theoretically able to pick up whatever he's taking. He doesn't have to actually pick it up or actually touch it - he has to be very close, to the point where he often touches passengers just to make sure he's closed the distance, but technically he has a couple inches or I'd have had to make his armor thinner."

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"Oh. I didn't know that. That's really cool."

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"But anyway, with my new armor I can do it remotely. Thanks for that, by the way."

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"You're welcome."

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"Okay so, back up, what's the plan if Lung brings her parents in person, then? Just how fast is Transit?"

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"Pretty fast when he's got a path and doesn't have to calculate on the fly. But certain possible room features could make it hard or impossible for him to appear near her parents on the first try - and I suppose nothing says they have to be near each other."

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"Okay, so, in the scenario where the parents are present and separated, what do we do? Presumably we won't send Transit in until we know the situation exactly."

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"Good question. Can you copy him? He's got a set of my armor too, bot could run it. Actually, can you copy him without his target choice limitation, better yet."

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"Uh, I can't copy his actual power."

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"Inconvenient. Work on that. Hmm."

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They giggle.

"Hmm... It's kinda annoying that Velocity can't carry people while superfast."
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"Can't your dad just rescue one and then the other?"

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"Only if the pathing works out right, and we can't count on that. Can you do a speedster without that problem, Glam? Seems less complicated than doing a teleporter, I know you can do Brutes..."

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"I can't do Velocity-level speedsters but might be able to do someone fast enough to surprise Lung if need be."

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"Invisible speedster, maybe."

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"I haven't yet figured out how to make something invisible. I managed to get the next best thing, though, like the camouflage of those hybrid monkeys."

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"Probably won't cut it, he may have multiple sets of eyes on the place, this is a gang leader we're talking about..."

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"He's not a leader yet, kind of a lieutenant really."

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"...how do you know that?"

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"I've been kinda keeping track of the maniac who knows my face and has a grudge."

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"Well, anyway, he's a cape in a gang and may be presumed to have mook privileges."

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"Right. Hmm, well, suppose I do an almost-invisible speedster and Transit arrives. Do I bring the two to him? What goes wrong in that scenario?"

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"They're rigged to explode?"

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"...uh."

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"I don't think Lung would do that..."

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"Maybe he has smart mook privileges. Anyway, explosions in particular aren't the only nasty thing that could be set up to happen should they be moved."

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"Uh, yeah, I don't really have an obvious idea of how to deal with that."

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"Well, if he explodes them, I tie their pieces together and boop them back to health, minus bomb."

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"You don't fix blood loss," Lorica reminds her.

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"Yeah, but if I get to somehow... like... gather all the blood in a bag and then tie the bag to the pieces... I can boop the whole thing together?"

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"...we might need a more airtight idea than that."

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"Especially since you'd have to do this blood collection in hostile territory with an angry Lung breathing down your neck."

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"If he has them rigged to explode or something, is there anything we can do? We'd need to get some tinker or something who could fix them to them instead of moving them."

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"You could contain the explosive in something," Lorica says.

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"I'd need to know where it is. If it were really obvious and there was time enough, yeah."

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"Or contain her parents in something."

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"Yes but that assumes the thing that's rigged to explode isn't, like, on, or in them." They look at Rewind. "Uh, sorry."

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"I'm not about to sabotage the plan because of squeamishness," she waves her hand. "What's important is that my parents be safe."

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"If you contain them in something sturdy enough then even in that case it does at least as good a job as the bagging-gore-from-around-the-room idea," Lorica says, "for letting Rewind bounce them back."

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"Yeah but then the gore will be in the same place as the bomb and the bomb will be rewound with the gore and it'll all have been for nothing."

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"Until we can get the bomb removed or neutralized," Lorica says, "at somewhat more leisure than 'literally in a room with Lung'."

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"But they'd be literally in a room with Lung anyway, if we move them with whatever container, when Rewind boops them they'll return to their original position in the room."

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"...Ugh, we need to start separating things into plan A and plan B and so on, I was still assuming Dad was here, I'm all mixed up."

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"...right. Okay, we should draw, like, a decision tree, for possibilities. Can bot project...?"

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Bot can project! It has "Copy of Rewind goes to meeting point" at the top and branches off from there.

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"Okay, so, from there, either Lung wants to just bait her or he doesn't. If he does, whatever, nothing to be gained. If he doesn't, he has to provide evidence that Rewind's parents are alive, which can come in the form of a recording or be in real-time. If it's a recording and Rewind-the-copy can't convince Lung to provide real-time evidence, also nothing to be gained. If it's real-time, either he'll produce her parents in person or he'll use some form of remote transmission."

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The bot draws in the tree.

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"So now we're planning out the produce-parents-in-person branch. There's a strategic difference between what we'll do if they're together or in different locations," they recapitulate. "If they're together, Transit can pop relevantly close to them and rescue them at the same time, correct? What's his maximum distance?"

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"Thirty miles. That's not the limiting factor in a situation like this, the limiting factor is if there's a place he can stand such that the only safe landing in a certain direction is where he wants to be."

"Not a lot of tall buildings near the address," the bot says.
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"No, I meant, the maximum distance he can be from passengers."

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"Two point zero eight inches, counting armor thickness," the bot says.

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"Okay so parents need to be pretty close together, in which case Transit can reliably rescue them if they're not rigged with something. Uh, yeah, that's actually an important branch to the tree, parents rigged or not. So, if they're close together and not rigged, the problem has been solved by Transit popping there and popping out, right?"

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"Unless the bot has trouble with getting him a path for any reason, there's usually a way to get to a ground floor location from a nearby tall building in one hop barring subways that neighborhood doesn't have, yeah."

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"Your robot said there weren't lots of tall buildings around that warehouse, didn't it?"

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"No tall buildings is bad. Sparse ones is good, it means he doesn't have to hope he doesn't land in the seventh floor bathroom of one while he's angling down from the sixteenth floor of another. But bot, do we have a good path origin point?"

"Yes. He can fly to the top of a nearby tower and should have a clear angle to any point in the warehouse."
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"Oh. That sounds good, then?"

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"That it does, yes. So, that's one branch of the plan tree we got covered. If they're separated and not rigged with anything explosive, I could speedster them together for Transit to pick them up?"

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"Maybe combo speedster-brute in case they're attached to things that are hard to move."

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"Will do. Now, suppose they're together and rigged with something? I guess that depends on the something but I think the most obvious ones are gun, explosive, poison...?"

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"Might not be obvious by looking. Could just be an ominous looking black box."

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"Which I could contain, if it's far enough away."

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"And Lung doesn't have a tinker or enough money to hire the Toybox," Rewind points out.

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"You don't have to be a tinker to put together something basic and stick it in somebody's personal space, not every danger is cape danger."

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"Yeah, okay, so we need to come up with something that doesn't depend on the strict method he'll use, hmm."

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"More copy-powers? Geez, I hope I never have to take point on strategizing without you on hand. You've done breakers, can you do strikers that grant breaker states?"

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"Like, what, a copy that makes someone else become a breaker temporarily? I can't really affect things I haven't conjured like that."

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"Inconvenient. Work on it," says Bella again. "Hm."

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"I could try to conjure something to protect them that's shaped like their body? Like, some sort of diamond encasing between them and whatever the thing-of-danger could be. That will be hard to do, though."

The unstated reason, whose implication Rewind will hopefully miss, being that the less people are expecting things to appear the bigger their resistance to it.
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Glam's shoulderbot whispers very softly, "You could reveal that you're 'there' a split second in advance."

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"Hmm, but yeah, I could do it I think," they say after hearing the thing. "I could even get a me-copy there and use it to distract people from Transit's arrival."

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"If we want to go 'distractions' route you've got a million tricks. Smoke bombs, flashbangs."

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"Wouldn't that make it more likely that he'd kill my parents, though?"

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"If they're far enough from each other that Transit can't pick the both of them up at the same time, some degree of distraction will be necessary anyway. It'd be walking on razor-wire no matter what we do."

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"Yeah. I don't think we can get this guaranteed safe, Rewind."

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"Still better than whatever'd happen if I just showed up there with no backup, or worse, if I didn't show up at all."

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"Yeah."

The bot draws in the surrounding-parents-with-diamond and distract-everybody options.
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"Okay, so, how does that plan fail? Other than the already-discussed problems with walking on razor-wire."

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"Deadman switches. Decoy parents who pass cursory inspection, maybe they're blindfolded or something to make them harder to recognize."

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"Deadman switches? We're not gonna kill anyone, are we?"

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"I'd sure love to kill that psychopath."

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"Deadman switch is a catchall for 'thing that won't do its thing unless somebody stops doing something', whether they stop because they're dead or evil or knocked out or what."

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"Okay... and how do we fix that? I don't think any of us can fake a signal without actually knowing what it is."

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"Might be we have to just hope he doesn't do it."

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"Yeah... If we come up with a good idea we'll use it but for now I think that branch's done. As for decoy parents—"

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"I can recognize my parents. I can just ask them something only they would know, Lung knows me well enough to know I'd do something like that."

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"But does he have to let you? If they're gagged or on a video feed."

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"If he doesn't that's pretty much the same thing as not offering proof they're alive at all, and we're back to the first branch of the tree."

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"I don't think we can count on Lung having sane standards for what constitutes proof that someone's alive. I can imagine him producing her actual parents in no condition to talk."

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"Right, but that's not what I mean. I mean, in terms of what we can actually do and plan for, incomplete proof that they're alive which Rewind can't get him to complete is pretty much the same thing as no proof at all."

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"Mm."

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"Or, well, I suppose we could just pretend they're in fact Rewind's parents and try to rescue them anyway, and if they're not, well, we'll either save them or arrest them depending on just who they are."

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"There's an idea." The bot fills in a side branch.

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"So any strategies that apply to rescuing Rewind's parents apply to fake-parents. Except then we'd have the problem of rescuing her actual parents at some point, probably."

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"Yeah. If Lung puts them somewhere findable."

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"Okay, so... any other failure modes?"

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"Nothing that seems likely enough to bear mentioning."
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"Alright. Is there any difference in strategy between if they're rigged with something and separated or if they're rigged with something and together? Other than my speedster?"

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"No, I think that's the only difference."

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"Then the bring-Rewind's-parents-in-person whole subtree's done, I guess?"

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"Yeah." The bot wraps it up.

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"Okay, next's remote transmission, which could be either a video feed or a phone call."

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"Make sure," Lorica tells Rewind, "if it's either that you get to see or hear them react to something in real time."

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"Yeah, if it's a recording it's pretty useless."

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"But it could be a recording pretending to be a live feed, if you don't interact with it."

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"I won't let him trick me."

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"Okay, so, if it's a telephone conversation... I can't actually conjure anything through the phone that won't alert them."

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"What do you mean, 'that won't alert them'?"

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"Well, I can only conjure stuff if I can notice it's been conjured. Via video or in-person I can make a tiny locator somewhere they're not likely to be looking but which I can see, whereas via the phone it'd need to produce some noise loud enough for me to hear and then they'd hear it, too."

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"Wait, really? I didn't know that."

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"Eighty percent of power is appearances."

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"Okay, but would it have to be a particularly implicating noise? Make it sound like somebody pressed the 6 button by accident or like the Rewind copy coughed."

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"But... hmm... well, what could I conjure that's useful and would produce that kind of noise? Also there's the problem that I won't be seeing the other side, so whatever thugs that will be there might notice the thing I conjured wherever my power makes it appear."

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"A bot," says Lorica. "A little, mini bot, which can make noises and see. A camo model."

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"Where would I conjure it, that whoever's holding the phone wouldn't hear?"

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"Inside the casing? If you can get it small enough."

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"Hmmm... I probably can, but then it wouldn't really be able to see. Which, well, might not be necessary, if it's just a locator. Oh, your bots have night vision don't they?"

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"Yeah. And once it's there it'll be able to report to you if other bots appear in its vicinity."

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"Yes. I'm gonna need a video feed ready to receive its input, though, so I can in principle tell that it's inside the phone."

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"That's a really weird limitation."

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They spend the next hour or so in this vein, expanding the planning tree until they're all satisfied that it's the best they can do to save Rewind's parents.

"Can your bot produce, like, a summary of this? Or a report, or something? So we can show it to Piggot."
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"On it," says the bot.

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"Awesome. Alright, operation save-Rewind's-parents is on."

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"You know, it's kinda weird that you two call me Rewind even here."

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Blink. "Yeah, I'm kinda used to using Lorica's cape-name due to her not being out with her secret identity here and. Habit." Shrug.

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"I can stop if you want."

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"Eh, I don't really care. And it's weirder that Glam sometimes walks around in their suit. Like now."

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"Well, that is 'cause sometimes I'm feeling more nonbinary than boy or girl."

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"Alright. So, uh, do we call Armsmaster now?"

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"I'm looking over the bot summary; do you two want to see it before I send it up?"

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"Sure."

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"I think I could probably recite it in my sleep by now, but I guess it won't hurt."

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The bot projects it. It's written in polite bot style but covers all the key points and belabors the reasoning for all the things Piggot's likely to complain about.

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"That looks pretty good," Glam says after reading it all, and Rewind nods in approval.

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"Sending," says the bot.

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"Alright!" Pause. "Now what?"

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"Well, we wait for Armsmaster to answer, I guess."

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"Right, of course."

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And before Glam has completed saying the word 'course' Armsmaster's reply has arrived, asking them to meet with him and Piggot in Conference Room 03.

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"Showtime."

To the conference room.
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Armsmaster—or rather, Colin, in civilian gear—and Piggot are waiting there, sitting at the head of the long table.

"We looked over your strategic considerations, and both deemed it acceptable."
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"Yes," she says under her breath.

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"Thank you. I'll rearrange our schedules so all the requisite Wards are fresh then."

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"Not all," Colin says. "There are some slight changes I wish to make. Namely, if enough Wards and heroes suddenly stop patrolling right before the appropriate time, that might tip Lung and the gang off. We will need to adjust their patrolling schedules and routes together in order to seem to not have been notified."

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"I'll email you a proposal?"

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He shakes his head. "I'm already here, we can do it now and get this over with in time for everyone to know what they'll do and be rested before the operation tonight."

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"Okay..." A bot projects onto the table the current schedule and she starts suggesting swaps.

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Colin makes some other suggestions and asks questions about certain Wards.

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And eventually they should have something worked out that doesn't look weird.

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That evening, close to the appropriate time, the heroes are inconspicuously patrolling or in hidden positions far enough away from the meeting point that the thugs-failing-to-pretend-to-be-civilians keeping a lookout don't notice them.

Glam conjures a Rewind-copy inside her armor, connected to the bot network.
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And the bot shows Rewind, hanging back safely, a projection inside her helmet of what she'd be seeing if she were in the copy suit; and bounces her body language to the copy suit.

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And Glam does their part in expecting that the copy will act like Rewind does, because of course it will. They also have access to several screens, most of them blanks, that are meant to become occupied by appropriate feeds when need be.

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Rewind arrives at the arranged meeting place (well, her copy does) in her suit. There are thugs waiting for her, all of them with covered faces and pretty well-armed.

"Get rid of the suit," one of them calls.

"But wh—" she offers some token resistance, and the thug points a gun at her and she says, "Alright, alright." The suit is gone, pretend-booped ten minutes into the past.

"Now we wait."

"For what?" Rewind asks.

"Ten minutes."
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The bots have a lot more trouble helping like this.

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But Glam of course fully expects them to still be able to do a whole lot with that copy that's still networked to them, and also fully expects it to act exactly like Rewind wants it to.

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And the copy "is" "an android", so the bots can at least still send Rewind visual data.

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No, it "isn't" "an android," it just is an android. Clearly. There's no doubt about it. Yup. Totally.

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"Where are my parents?" she asks.

"Alive."

"I asked where."

"You see them after we know you don't escape," another thug spits back, in a very heavy accent.

"How do I know they're alive?"

"You wait."
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What helpful thugs.

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"What am I supposed to do, then?"

"Wait," the thug repeats, sounding very pleased with himself.
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"Wait," Armsmaster agrees, guessing the question's true recipients.

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"Hm," she says, and folds her arms, and glares.

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"Timing out your power's definitely not suggesting they were planning on this being a friendly exchange," mutters Lorica.

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She purses her lips.

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"You can talk now, your copy won't repeat what you say," Glam says, guessing from their view of Rewind's face inside the helmet.

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"It can't be friendly, if he's trying to recruit me he can't think I'd go willingly."

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"Yeah, but eventually he needs to give you some level of freedom to operate or you're no use to him. He has to have some plan for how to get you on his team."

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"Probably just to threaten my parents and get me to just do what he says. If he really believes I haven't told the heroes he might want to make me a secret agent or something."

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"Indefinite parent storage. Brilliant human resources management, Lung..."

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"It will not do to underestimate him. It might be just what he wants us to do."

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"Fear of the unknown..."

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Lorica paces.

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"Focus. Glam, can you conjure more eyes where they're not looking?"

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"I'd need Rewind to look somewhere that's not being watched so I can see it, but that might make them look."

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"Strategic bored eye-rolling?"

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"Do it once, they might get startled by the sudden movement but then they won't the second time."

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She sighs heavily and unfolds her arms, which, as predicted, causes some alarm from the thugs. This alarm is short-lived when they notice it's just an expression of a fifteen-year-old's boredom, and then she manages to roll her eyes at a dark corner of the building—

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And Glam fully expects her to see the soft reflection of a camera there, transmitting the scene to the bot network.

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The bots add another view to the projections of the room.

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It is merely another angle on the scene copy-Rewind's eyes are already transmitting. There are apparently no hidden thugs or traps, and nothing they hadn't previously noted.

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Still, it's nice to have a backup vantage point.

Bots tick down a timer.
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Nothing interesting happens until the ten minutes are up.

When they are, two thugs detach from the rest and walk to her. She takes a step back. "What do you want?"

"We are taking you to Lung," one of them says. The other is silent.

"Lung's not coming here?"

"No."
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"Dad, get ready to be re-pathed..."
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"This has just gotten more complicated. Miss Militia, I need you and Dauntless to come closer to the target. Don't make it obvious, make it look like a natural detour from your patrol route."

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Rewind waits patiently to be escorted, then, throwing the thugs dirty looks. They approach and hold her by the arm—

—and suddenly the bots start receiving a large and shifting number of identical transmissions, new ones appearing and the old ones disappearing after a few seconds, all of them with the exact same parametres but increasingly far from the warehouse.
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"What the hell -" Lorica says, as the base station tries to keep up with its projection.

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"Lorica, what's happening? Are your bots defective?"

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"They are not! We've got unexpected cape on the scene -"

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The camera they left on the ceiling of the warehouse, however, catches exactly what's going on when the Rewind-copy and one of the thugs dissolve into white dust.

"It's Oni Lee! Lung must've recruited him. Lorica, can you unscramble the feeds?"
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"I'm working on it!"

Eventually the bots figure out a protocol to deprecate information from a temporary duplicate and provide a moving update of where Oni Lee is taking the fake Rewind.
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He is, apparently, taking the fake Rewind a long way away to the northwest, teleporting only as far as he can find stable landings to teleport to.

"Follow him, try to remain undetected, the plan may still work," Armsmaster calls, and the noise of his motorcycle starting can be heard in the background halfway through the sentence.
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Transit follows in fewer, longer hops as the bot paths him along to discreet landing places.

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Oni Lee is fast, being able to just go wherever he's looking, and he gains on the heroes easily, crossing half the city in only a few minutes. Eventually he arrives with the Rewind-copy at another warehouse, this one with a metal table and a chair right in the middle, and completely empty of any other content.

"Sit," Oni Lee orders.

"Why?" Rewind asks.

"Sit," he repeats, shoving her toward the chair. "Wait." When she does sit, he looks out the one non-boarded window and after a few seconds becomes dust.
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"Pathing Dad to new signaled location... Bot, bounce it to the comms for everybody relevant."

"Done," chirps the bot.
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And the waiting game happens yet again.

At least that gives the heroes some time to regain their lost positions.
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Glam conjures another hidden camera there, and after ten minutes, Oni Lee reappears, wearing his more usual demon mask, with Lung in tow, unmasked. Not that that makes much of a difference, even with a mask his heavily tattooed body is always visible, and he'd be easily recognizable in public.

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"You came. I thought you would not have."

"Of course I came, you have my parents! Where are they? Are they even alive? If you kill me the heroes will know it!"

"I told you not to warn them," he says, voice thick with menace.

"I didn't warn them, but if I suddenly disappear you're obviously the first suspect."

"Hmm."

"Where are my parents?"

"Alive."

"I want proof."

He nods, and gestures at another thug, who goes outside and returns with a TV set on an extension cord. The set shows a video of her parents.

"How do I know it's not a recording?" she asks.
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Glam expects to see the soft glint of a dark camera in a dark corner, barely there...

And their expectation is met.
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Rewind carries on, unsuspecting of the locator now broadcasting her parents' location.

"What do you want?"

"I want power. To unify all Asian gangs under only one."

"What do you want with me?"

"Power," he repeats. "You are powerful. You on their side are a thorn. You on ours are power."

"Then you have to prove to me that my parents are still alive."

"You see them on this video."

"It could be a recording."

"It is not."
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"It isn't," Glam agrees. "Lorica's bot network should be getting a locator signal there about now. I managed to conjure it there."

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"Yep. Comming location. Pathing," Lorica says.

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The parents are together, sitting, with two thugs pointing guns at their heads.

"Act normally, pretend you don't believe him," Armsmaster instructs. "Transit, do you have good enough reaction time to rescue them or will you be bringing Rewind with you?"
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"It might be better to bring Rewind anyway, if Lung suspects anything..."

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"Depends on how fast the gunmen are."

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"Both your armors can deal with bullets, can't they?"

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"Yes. Glam could armor them up? They don't look attached to anything, just aimed-at."

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"Yeah but we should try to delay that as much as possible, if Lung realizes we're on our way he might start dragon-activating too soon and we want to postpone that as much as possible."

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(And the conversation with Lung continues:

"I have only your word on that."

"Do you doubt it?" Lung asks, his nostrils flaring.

"Of course."

"I could kill you."

"No you couldn't," she says, and smirks.)
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"Stall him five minutes and we've got convergence on the place..."

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"And don't provoke him," Armsmaster warns. "That could also set him off early. Transit, Lorica, ETA for arrival at the parents' location?"

It is farther away from Lung's, and in a different direction, closer to the docks.
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"I've only got a mediocre path for him, it could take a few tries."

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"Stall him," Armsmaster instructs.

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"I will make you an offer. You work for me, they stay alive. You slip up, you tell the heroes, I suspect you of stealing a candy, they die."

"You seem awfully confident in your ability to keep them hidden from me."

Lung frowns.

"You could try to encourage me with something more than threats that will make me try to get creative to avoid?" she asks, and rubs her fingers together in the universal 'money' gesture.
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"I said do not provoke him."

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"I have you outnumbered. I could set you on fire faster than you can use your power. I could make you hurt. I could kill you."

"If you trusted that you wouldn't be holding my parents hostage," she points out.

His frown deepens. "I would prefer having your cooperation."

"And threatening my parents is the best way you could find to have it?"

He remains silent.

"You ever hear of carrots and sticks? You're all sticks, no carrots, and you'll fall, Lung."

He looks at one of his thugs and says, "Kill the father."

"Wait, no—"
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As soon as Glam notices where this is going they conjure the designed protection around both parents—

—but the bullet is already in Rewind's father's brain.
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"Fuck! Abandon covertness, converge now!"

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Transit goes in.

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Bots swarm, golems break into a run -

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It'll still take a few more minutes for Transit and the real Rewind to arrive at the parents' location, but the moment Lung notices the diamond armor that sprouted around Rewind's parents he explodes, and then jumps at the copy, trying to burn it to a crisp.

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Except the copy grins and disappears, along with its feed. The other camera Glam conjured is quite enough for three Glam-copies to appear (now that the thugs are expecting such intervention it's just so much easier).

And the heroes start swarming into the warehouse.
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Lorica's bots are on the case for Transit's pathing; Lorica herself keeps an eye on everything and does strategic advice.

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"Windflower, fill him with darts before he gets bigger!" Armsmaster says, arriving on his bike. "Glam, contain the unpowered, everyone else focus on Lung—does anyone have eyes on Oni Lee?"

He's nowhere to be seen.
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"He seemed to need line of sight, I'll have a little warning before he can land on anybody -"

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Glam's copies start dealing with unpowered thugs, there and where Rewind's parents are. "Silica, need a hand," they say, because they have a finite amount of attention and her golems are more effective versus unpowered people than versus Lung himself.

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Glimmer slides and slams bodily onto Lung, who's still not large enough to shrug that off and is thrown onto a wall. "Windflower, now!"

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Windflower darts him.

Bots help; a cocktail of tranquilizers and poisons probably won't kill him but it's not going to do him any favors.
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It is indeed not! But he's growing bigger, so it's unclear whether they're having any effect when he roars and generates enough fire to scorch the wall he's been thrown at, as he jumps to his feet and kicks the wall to throw himself forward.

"Continue trying to poison him when you can, use your strongest shots," Armsmaster says, and turns his halberd into a long, electrified morningstar which he hits Lung with. "Miss Militia!"
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"Are we there yet?"

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"Just about."

It takes a couple false starts, but eventually he makes the last hop in.
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Glam has pretty thoroughly neutralized the few thugs in the place (a small apartment in a small, old, dingy apartment building somewhere), and when Rewind and Transit arrive, Glam dismisses the armor encasing Rewind's mother. They keep the one holding her father, though.

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And she proceeds to boop him back to life, which causes the armor to disappear and the bullet itself to return to where it'd been inside the thug's gun, from which position it falls onto the floor. She hugs him gingerly (still in her armor), and her mother hugs them both.

When they disentangle, Rewind says, "I'm going to make him pay for that."
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"Get yourself back to the last hop point," Transit tells Rewind, "can't likely carry all three of you."

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"I'm gonna go kick Lung's ass is what I'll do," she growls. "My parents are safe, he won't be. I'll fly there."

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...Transit doesn't argue; he just gets her parents out the way he came, hop hop hop.

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"Rewind, it's you he wants in the first place, don't walk into his lair -"

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"I got my armor, I can use it on him from afar, and besides, if he suddenly becomes singleminded at me that's not likely to make him tacticaly smarter." She flies in the direction of Lung's lair, but that'll still take a while. Flying's faster than running, but it's not very close.

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And meanwhile, the fight continues to happen. Lung is large and scaley enough that Windflower's darts aren't very useful anymore. And although he's only one, he's still giving the heroes a run for their money. Until Glam gets sick of it and says, "I'm gonna try an experimental measure."

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"Armsmaster, if you want me to ground her now's the time to say so, but it'll fuck with morale if I fuck with her suit - Experimental measure?"

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Armsmaster is swatted aside and uses his halberd to help him roll to his feet. "Don't, we can use all help we can get. Miss Militia!" While no heroes are on the way to Lung she can use her heavier-duty weapons on him. "And I want to know what measure."

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"Siberian-grade restraints."

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"You can do that? Why am I only being told this now?"

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"PR problems," says Lorica. "Siberian-themed stuff is, uh, stripey."

"What?" asks Miss Militia, able to hear when there's in a break in gunfire.
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"Besides, it's hard to conjure and I've needed practice."

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"Do it!" Armsmaster growls.

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So Glam does, a striped restraint around Lung's body that starts squeezing.

And Oni Lee chooses this moment to make an appearance—or rather, several consecutive ones, culminating in teleporting his boss elsewhere.
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"Grenades! Cover! Glam, I want little tracker bots piggybacking on the regular ones - Windflower, fall back now -"

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Dauntless quickly switches from his arclance to his shield's force screen to try to contain the damage of the short-range grenades Oni Lee is dropping around the physical combatants and golems, giving Lung time to go after the ranged combatants.

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Little tracker bots are conjured. "Where are the PRT trucks?"

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"Lorica, keep track of Oni Lee, try to give us early warning!"

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"I'm working on it!" Bots attempt to stick the right Oni Lee with a tracker. "PRT's en route, just had to turn the sirens on to get through traffic, ETA fourteen minutes."

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Oni Lee disrupts their efforts to subdue Lung even more, and the Siberian-strong restraints last only as long as it takes him to notice them and rescue Lung from them. It does buy Miss Militia and Windflower time to get away from the barrelling dragon, but it's not a very good alternative to the teleporter himself, who appears in front of them holding a knife and whose original is elsewhere before they can react.

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"Windflower get out," Armsmaster says after having tripped Lung, "you're a liability!"

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"She's trying," Lorica says. "Miss Militia, give Windflower smoke bomb cover, I think Oni Lee has to see where he's going."

Miss Militia obliges and ushers Windflower out of the building. The smoke clears.

"Gonna try a flash, see if I can blind all of Oni Lee in one go and slow him down. Three. Two. One -"

The bots light the fuck up.
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His mask might be more expensive than one would expect, because that doesn't slow him down.

Rewind's timely arrival and immediate Lung-boopery does, though. Lung is much smaller—the past ten minutes have been intense—enough that he isn't covered in scales anymore. She doesn't retract the chain, just boops her own armor so it returns to her.
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"Windflower, change of plans, come back here and try to poison him again!"

He, Glimmer, golems, and Glam-copies are all over Lung once more.
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Windflower comes back. She sticks close to Miss Militia and loads darts into a gun Miss Militia makes; the latter's a better shot.

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And whenever Lung moves, Rewind remote-boops him and then boops her own armor again, which makes her a priority target for Oni Lee. She never stops moving, zigzagging this way and that and rewinding herself a few seconds to try to escape him, while he tries to plant bombs on her but has to land every now and then.

And Lung, himself, notices Rewind "for the first time" whenever she boops him, and roars in anger in a comical loop, which allows the heroes much more resources to actually keep him contained while Oni Lee's attention is forced to be divided a hundred ways.
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The bots are super recording this. Later they can eat popcorn to Repetitively Furious Lung.

"If you keep booping him he's not going to wind up poisoned or tranqed," says Lorica. "Ugh, we have to get Oni Lee - Any objections if I cut the lights and land a bot on him then?"
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"I'm trying to contain him!" Rewind says, between frantically dodging Oni Lee's short-range grenades and trying to keep Lung from hurting everyone else.

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"No objections, do it."

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Bots find lightswitches.

"Three, two, one -" Flick.

Bots descend upon Oni Lee's last known position and their intentions are not friendly.
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Glam helps by boarding the windows and doors and covering what meager light was coming through them.

Oni Lee is descended upon, quite unable to teleport. Until, that is, Lung explodes in fire, making Lorica notice just how many copies Oni Lee can create in the span of half a second.

(It's twelve. That's how many it is.)
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Did she at least get a tracker on him -

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Yup!

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"Didn't tranq did track." Lights up. "Want a tranq dart on the tracker bot he's wearing, Glam."

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"Liquids I conjure don't last inside bodies. Put a tranq bot on Rewind, he's always coming for her."

Indeed, he is, between that and moving the heroes away from Lung.
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Rewind gets company. Company that knows which Oni Lee is the latest model.

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And Oni Lee appears right behind her, grenade in hand—

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A bot flings itself on the grenade and another stabs him in the carotid with a tranq.

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It's duplicated another five times before Oni Lee goes down. Rewind boops Lung one more time, and the PRT trucks pull up outside.

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"Oh thank god for foam," says Lorica.

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Indeed! The variations in Lung's facial expressions whenever he's booped into an increasingly bad situation are also quite something. Rewind boops him into place a few more times while he's buried in foam, and the variously incapacitated and restrained thugs start being moved into trucks.

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Phew.

Lorica status-checks all the Wards on the ground.
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Everyone's more-or-less okay. Miss Militia and Windflower have variously deep cuts, Armsmaster's armor took most of the damage from grenades and Lung's... Lungness... Glimmer's forcefield means she's pretty unscathed, neither Glam nor Silica were actually on site, Echo sat this one out.

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Miss Militia and Windflower are within ten minutes of some of the injuries. Lorica sends Rewind their way.

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Rewind asks them for permission to remove ten minutes' worth of memories from them.

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Miss Militia declines, Windflower accepts.

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So Windflower is sent back to the past.

The various thugs have been loaded into the various trucks, as well as Oni Lee—after being thoroughly foamed and having his eyes covered.

Lung will be another matter entirely.
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Bot on the comms updates Windflower on what she missed.

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The PRT officers find a way to spray anti-foam in strategic places and move Lung like a huge block of foam.

"This... was fantastic work, honestly," Armsmaster says. "I must commend you all for it, and especially you, Lorica, for the strategy."
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"Thank you."

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"You'll be going high places in the Protectorate if you keep this good work up," he says, a bit awkwardly.

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"...Thank you."

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"Anyway, let's return to the PHQ to debrief, and then everyone has the rest of the night off."

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Assembly! Debriefing! So exciting!

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Not very much! There isn't a whole lot to talk about, since they actually succeeded in spite of the wrench Oni Lee threw into the plan, it's mostly just congratulating each other and going over some details of the engagement, then details about how to handle the media. In other words, same old.

And then they're dismissed for the night.
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"My body can't decide whether I'm wired or need to crash," Lorica comments to Glam.

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"I'm pretty much the same. I predict lots of tossing and turning. And, we actually captured Lung. Talk about morale boost."

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"I got footage of those faces he was making over and over again."

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"Oooh, I definitely want to see that. I wonder if we can convince PR to publish that."

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"It's probably a bad idea, honestly, but we can watch it ourselves."

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"Would it be a bad idea to show it to him in the brig?"

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"Prrrrrobably."

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"Awwww."

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"Yeah, I know."

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"He was angry at Rewind before, now..."

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"...now let's hope they Birdcage him."

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"Yup. It might be useful to publish funny videos of him, so he won't be able to command as much respect as he could before..."

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"No, that's exactly why not to, we don't want him thinking he'd better go earn some extra respect."

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"Yeah, you're right," they—

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—he sighs.

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"I make a habit of that."

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"Yes, I've noticed. It's why I love you." Pause. "Well, it's one of the reasons."

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"It would be weird if you loved me for exactly one reason."

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"It would! Thankfully there are a whole host of those."

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Giggle.

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"We should throw a party for having captured him."

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"I'd like to schedule it for after he's no longer in our custody and it's not our fault if he gets out."

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"Vvvvery good idea, but fortunately he doesn't have an Empire Eighty-Eight to rescue him."

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"I'd still rather not assume he's totally without a contingency."

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"Yeah, of course, and in any case it's not like musings about humiliating him will change anything."

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"Indeed not." Yawn. "I think I'm crashing. G'night."

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"Good night, love. Sleep well."

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She squeezes his hand and goes to meet up with her dad and bounce home.

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Sadde's birthday is a couple of weeks later.
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Director Piggot would like to see him.

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...alright. He floats over there, wearing the floaty parts of his costume.

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"Hello, Sadde," smiles Director Piggot. "I'm sure you've heard that as an identity protection measure the Wards sometimes retain a member past their eighteenth birthday, so that it's not trivial to narrow down the possibilities via date of birth."

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Oh. Oh! That. "Yes, ma'am."

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"In your case they will be retaining you for five months, two weeks." She hands him a sticky note. "Your graduation date, if you wish to put it into your calendar. It will make it easier for you and Lorica to continue coordinating your powers as you have. Happy birthday."

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He takes the sticky note. Right. Just so they can say they're not keeping him the literal maximum amount of time they can. "Thank you," he says anyway. "Was that, ah, everything?"

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"That's all. Have a good birthday, Sadde."

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"Thank you, ma'am."

Yeah, okay, he's not really planning on leaving the Protectorate anymore anyway. He floats back over to his room.
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A while later, his shoulderbot says, "You should go to Lorica's workshop."

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"Ooh, should I?" he asks, putting his book down and conjuring his costume to do just that.

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"Yes," confirms the shoulderbot.

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So he floats over to her workshop.

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And in it is Lorica with a four-inch chocolate cake, becandled, and a present. "Happy birthday!"

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"Aww! Thank you, my love," he says, floating over to her to kiss her and accept the present.

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The present is a book!

"It's a translation of a pirated Chinese cape science book."
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"...that is so cool, is there stuff on the Yàngbǎn?"

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"Yeah!"

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"Best girlfriend," he says, and wraps her in a hug.

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Hug!

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And kiss! And then cake!

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Cake for two!

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Yes! Yay!

"So, Piggot called me to her office earlier today."
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"They keeping you for six more?"

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"Five and a half."

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"Of course."

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"She said I'd have more time to coordinate with your powers or something. Which, well, is true."

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"I mean, I coordinate with Dad fine and he's not a Ward, but it's probably slightly less awkward to have me issuing orders when I technically outrank you and in Dad's case they just pipe to his helmet so it looks less weird..."

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"Yeah but you don't patrol together and there'll be a lot of training and patrol time with actual adult heroes instead of Wards when I graduate to the Protectorate proper."

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"Yeah. It'll be different."

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"But we needn't worry about that for another five and a half months."

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"I mean, maybe it's worth a week or two of advance worrying."

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"Worrying about what, though?"

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"Coordinating across team boundaries," she shrugs.

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"Well, in any actual engagements we'll still work together, and I don't think we'll actually forget how to in the five months you're still here and we're not on the same team. Assuming they release you immediately upon your birthday."

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"I doubt it. They made me fucking captain. They might not keep me for six, but an extra one or two? Unless they have a next candidate in mind and want to give them a while."

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"Who knows, though, Armsmaster even complimented you last week with Lung, maybe they'll want to make you a real hero quickly to use your skills more freely."

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"Won't they be surprised."

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"Honestly, you and I barely even go on the field anymore, you could keep helping the heroes remotely from your penthouse. I'm going to remain a hero, I could even conjure you-copies for public image purposes when we engage villains."

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"I don't mind helping. If they let me I will happily maintain Dad's and Rewind's suits, have my bot coordinate copies and send real bots to check things out on an as-needed basis, and provide strategic advice. I will still show up to Endbringer fights. I just mind the command structure and the obligatory extracurriculars and not being in control of my budget and having to account for what I make."

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"Tinkers do have it pretty bad, there."

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"Ayep."

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"Will you have to modify something about your bot to own its patent or something?"

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"Protectorate doesn't own it, not the software. I'd have to redesign my suit and the drones if I wanted to go out without you as a proxy and they made a fuss, though. I've got that in the works in the background but I can't do enough work on it for them to claim anything while they've still got me."

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"Awww but I like my shoulderbot, it's adorable."

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"You'd have to take it up with the Protectorate if you want to keep the exact design and not a new model. Might slide because you're planning to stay."

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"Yeah. Although you'd probably be able to make something likewise cute under the new design constraints."

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"Yep."

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"Will there be any functional changes?"

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"Maybe. I can't work on this very much in advance, remember?"

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"Well, you could have come up with advance ideas and stuff before you actually worked on it."

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"It's a little like the microwave, if I have an idea it's weird not to at least fully design it."

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"Oh. Hmm, does designing include actually implementing it?"

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"No, drawing it up will do, but there's some ambiguity about ownership of things like that."

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"But in that case the PRT doesn't need to actually know about it, do they?"

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"I'm not sure what the advantage would be to advance design of things I shouldn't build yet, even if we assume it's a great idea to conceal designs from them."

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"Well, if you design things now you'll be able to expand on it or scrap it if you decide it's no good and in general have the idea-having part done by the time you graduate. Saves time."

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"I usually don't revise designs until I've tried them in practice."

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"Okay, so not as timesaving as possible, but still saves some."

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"Only in the long run, and I have more on my plate right now than I expect to as an independent tycoon who can finally let her software do all the work."

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"Tycoon?"

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"I will get a loan, the bot will run a cookie cutter MMORPG with the best moderation and NPC dialogue in the world, and I will be rich."

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"...if you could figure out a way to make non-tinker VR helmets or help other people develop that you'd have the single best game in the history of ever."

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"That's part of the plan! I think I can get rich even if I don't pull that off though."

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"I think I'm gonna want to play it, too. Fighting critters without anyone's actual, real butt on the line is probably way more fun."

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"Plus you'll get XP instead of a vague hard-to-quantify increase in how much you have practiced individual skills."

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"How are you gonna VR physical skills, though?"

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"I mean, it'd be helmets plus controls, I'd have to get really fancy and probably charge a lot of money for something more immersive. Might do it if I had a good idea and there was market."

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"Oh, there's market. You might accidentally remove a chunk of the population from the species' genotype, but there's market."

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"I'm not sure if this market would hold up to having to physically move around to use their rig."

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"If it was immersive enough maybe they wouldn't need to."

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"...Thaaaat might require brain surgery."

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"Would it, though? I'm not sure how sci-fi we're speaking here but if the VR equipment in question could actually read this kind of brain command..."

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"We're veering out of my specialty there. I mean, maybe if I modified the design for my implants, but it'd still be surgical."

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"I suppose. And in any case it couldn't be you who made the individual pieces or the tinker curse would break them."

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"Yeah, it has to be bot-producible."

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"By the way, have you ever tested that? Are bot-made things not tinker-cursed?"

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"I avoid having them make much," she says. "For reasons. I don't think so, though, based on very small tests."

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"You don't think they're tinker-cursed or you don't think they're not?"

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"I think they are not cursed. The bots don't run on instinct the way I do; which means the prototype doesn't always work because I'll have an instinct mid-build and they go with the original design; but if it works so will the next one and they don't seem to - draw on my power as much, when I maintain stuff they made."

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"Oh, that's... interesting. And very, very exploitable."

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"Yep."

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"Do they have to come up with the design, or can they just do something you designed, or a compromise...?"

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"They can do my simple designs. The complicated ones seem to work only with instinct operative during the build."

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"...simple? What counts as simple, even?" he laughs.

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She giggles. "No, well, Tinker bullshit. It's good at tools, custom welders and stuff! It can take my pseudocode flowcharts and turn them into bug-free programs."

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"Does it use the same programming language you do?"

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"Yeah, although it can convert things into standard ones long as they're Turing-complete and meet one or two other criteria. Nasty efficiency cost, but sometimes you gotta make sacrifices for compatibility."

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"Or human readability in some cases."

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"That would only apply if I were open-sourcing, which I approve of philosophically but have a hard time with practically being a Tinker and not a regular engineer."

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"Yeah. At some point I kinda wanna see if I can even begin to wrap my head around it."

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"Do you even know any programming?"

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"Basic concepts? Some computability theory and stuff, math is fun, no actual languages."

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"Well, you can have a look if you want but I don't think on that background you'll get anywhere."

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"Would I get anywhere if I learned anything? Like, say, Java, or something."

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"It'd give you a loose idea of what various operators are likely to be."

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"I might do that for fun, then. Shouldn't be hard."

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"Enjoy."

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"I probably will! I don't suppose you have any pointers?"

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"Not really, I never conventionally studied the stuff."

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"Eh, there are probably good enough guides and tutorials online."

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"Yeah, I think programming's one of the easiest things to pick up using only the internet."

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"Probably. I think I might learn more if I actually have something to do with the language, though."

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"Like what?"

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"Dunno, it just sounds like the kind of thing that's easier to learn doing than, like, studying."

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"Fair enough. I think some people make calculators? Or really simple chatbots."

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"A calculator sounds like a good milestone. A chatbot sounds... more complicated."

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"A simple chatbot. Like Eliza."

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"I have no idea who Eliza is."

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"Eliza's a chatbot that parrots your own poorly re-grammared statements back at you with therapist-speak appended."

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"Therapist speak?"

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"Yeah, like 'and how do you feel about insert sentence here' or 'is it important to you that insert sentence here' or whatever."

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"Oh. Yeah that's easier."

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"Much."

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"Eliza sounds a bit obnoxious, though."

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"Yeah, not a very good conversationalist."

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"Might pass a very simple version of a Turing test though."

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"Sure, if a dumb person's administering it."

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"Could be a kid thinking it's a shrink."

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"Yeah, turns out the basic Turing test is easy to pass because humans come in 'really bad conversationalist'."

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"Yup, sometimes they do. I'm harder to fool, though."

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"And the bot is trying to impersonate a specific human, not just any human."

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"Yeah. It definitely can impersonate a generic human perfectly."

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"Mm-hm."

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Sadde takes another piece of cake because. Cake.
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Indeed cake.

Soon they're out of cake!
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"Y'know, I expected to feel different after becoming technically-an-adult."

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"No dice?"

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"It feels like yesterday plus one day."

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"How curious that we aren't biologically predisposed to sudden maturation after a societally-determined number of astronomical events."

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"Eh, it's more that I don't feel... er... socially different? Any freer? Maybe the fact that I'm planning on staying around or that I haven't graduated from the Wards is doing it."

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"Well, you can register to vote."

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"Yyyeah, I can, but I'm not sure that's the best use of my time."

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"I'm not going to suggest you buy cigarettes."

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"Not going to do that either, also not the best use of my time."

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"What is the best use of your time?"

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"Hmm."

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"Is the answer 'birthday sex'."

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"It's a possible answer."

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"One of many, huh?"

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"It's one I particularly like."

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"But is it your favorite?"

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"Of the options that have appeared so far in my mind, yes!"

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"Hmmm, should we spend a while thinking up other possibilities just in case this one isn't the optimal one?"

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"We could, or we could also do this one and if we come up with something better we can stop and go do that instead."

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"But I hate being interrupted, Sadde."

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"Then we can do it after we're done."

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"All right then." And she puts her helmet on for the stroll to his room.

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Eeeee! They stroll to his room—or rather, she might stroll, he's floating.

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And birthday sex ensues!

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It does! Eeeee!

"I haven't been able to think of something better to do. Have you?"
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"No, not really."

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"Well, then, I suppose we could cuddle here until we do."

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"Okay."

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Ee! Cuddling!

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Mmmm, cuddling.

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"So, I've been thinking..."
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"You? Really?"

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He pokes his tongue out at her.

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She giggles. "What've you been thinking?"

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"About what to do about the Slaughterhouse Nine."

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"Real cozy pillow talk. Come up with anything?"

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"Sorry, we can talk about something else instead."

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"Nah, it's fine, just snarking, what've you got?"

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"Well... I've been kinda obsessing over them for a few months now and watching old news clips and stuff the PRT didn't release to the public—working with them does give one lots of perks, at least—trying to understand how the heck they manage to... well, continue existing."

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"You mean, because their leader's power is having knives and their recruitment strategy is death, or for some other reason?"

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"I mean, now they have the Siberian, yeah, but pretty much. And how they stay—together, I guess is the biggest thing. Like, the Siberian has actually been killing less people per day than she was when she was going solo and, like, what gives?"

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"Yeah, I don't know how their group dynamics work at all."

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"I think I have an idea, though. I don't know if I'm right, because it's not exactly a pattern, and if it was, wouldn't other people have picked up on this? Like, say, Alexandria, she's supposed to be super smart in addition to a flying tank, even if nowadays she tries to keep that quiet."

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"I've heard that. What's the idea?"

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"It's... well, it looks like Jack kinda targets them? At each other and at people. There's very little footage of him, and even less actually public, and I don't have clearance to watch all of the non-public images, but... There's a lot of fighting within the group, too, they sometimes stop rampaging to have a go at each other, but never Jack himself, and he's often... watching?"

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"So you think he's got a secondary unrelated power like mine?"

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"Not necessarily... but maybe. I don't know if I'd even call it a power, if it is it's super subtle, but yeah, based on the videos I think I could justify a master rating, maybe. It'd help if I had access to more files, but probationary Ward means nothing confidential sees its way to my eyes."

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"They don't give us nonprobationaries that much either, you know."

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"Probably not," he agrees. "But ugh, I'm eighteen now, and I'm only probationary in the first place because of an accident, my record's been spotless since!"

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"When you graduate you're not probationary anymore," she says.

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"Yeah, I know, that's my point, I could not-be-probationary right now!"

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"Powers that be say otherwise."

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"Ugh," he groans. "Anyway... I'm trying to figure out a way to exploit that kind of thing. And I noticed he doesn't have... quite... as much control over the Siberian as over the others. In the vids. I mean she's a recent addition, I suppose, but..."

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"How are you evaluating his control over her?"

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"It's... intuition? If I had to describe it in words it feels like she disobeys him more than the others, and sometimes does things that don't really jibe with the rest of the things the others are doing, and this is all on a very small sample of videos and other records so I could be completely off-base here."

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"Huh."

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"So, I'm trying to figure out how I could use that, except, like I said, he makes her kill less and that might not be... so desirable."

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"...Rephrase?"

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"If Jack's the thing holding her back from the killing sprees she used to go on before she joined the Nine, trying to use their relationship and that control against them might be a bad idea."

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"I mean, unless you could hijack it to the point of further containing her."

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"Hijack Jack," he snorts. "But yeah, hmm, that sounds difficult."

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"Pun unintended. And yes, since you don't know how it even hypothetically works."

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"I mean it could very well just be psychology, I hadn't thought it could be a power until you suggested it."

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"If it's a power it could also be keeping him alive with that kind of price on his head."

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"Yeah. A thinker power? For knowing how to make people do what he wants them to do? It'd have to be really subtle for no one to have ever noticed it. And you'd probably be immune."

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"I would, so maybe I'd have a mysteriously easy time assassinating him, but that leaves the rest of the Nine to contend with."

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"Which, if I can Siberian around, might be quickly reduced to just the real Siberian."

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"Buuut then we have a real Siberian."

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"Yes. Yes we do. I wonder if my Siberian could damage that one?" Pause. "It totally could."

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"However, if, say, the real Siberian wrecks all the cameras in sight thereby escaping with no implications about the strength of your version, we continue to have a real Siberian."

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"Ergo the cameras shouldn't be in sight. I don't think she's ever shown any thinker abilities that would give her a leg up on other people when it comes to detecting hidden surveillance. And when my Siberian is fighting her, she'll presumably be pretty busy with it."

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"It's still dicey."

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"Yeah. Cameras can multiply, though, I could conjure bots along the way, as long as I have one eye on the scene and one unsupervised place, I can keep a constant number of cameras around, plus more than one Siberian keeping the real one occupied."

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"You might have to be hypnotized to pull it off."

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"Probably. If you're the one running the show I might even become immune to Jack, too, if it is some power he has."

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"Depends how it works. And whether he can use it nonsubtly if he wants."

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"Speculating about all the possible ways his hypothetical extra power could work is probably not gonna get us anywhere useful."

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"Probably."

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"Speaking tactically, we—my Siberian—could probably get rid of Winter, Vellum, and Screamer fairly easily, once we had a bead on them. Nice Guy and Miasma, we'd definitely need you."

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"I don't know if I'd do anything about Miasma, but yeah, if I ever catch Nice Guy alone he's Dead Guy."

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"You'd probably be able to actually see Miasma, which is the only reason he's as hard to kill as he is."

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"I don't work on people who turn legitimately invisible, just people who make it so you can't see them. No idea which he is."

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"Oh. Hmm, then I suppose the best way to deal with him is sneaking up on him, he only turns invisible while he's using his gas power."

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"Yeah, tag him with a tracker or something."

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"...next time we do the hypnosis thing, you need to try to convince me to make an invisible bot."

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"Oooooh."

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"I managed to do something almost invisible by mimicking those stupid monkeys, surely I can do the real deal."

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"When do you wanna try it? What else should we try while you're under?"

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"Whenever, and I'm not sure. Can you think of something that'd work on Miasma?"

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"Spiderweb sorta thing, if he moves it tells you where he's at."

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"Ooh. I don't think I'd need to be under for that, though? I can just," and there's a spiderweb and a little black widow between his raised index and middle fingers.

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"Did you have to include the spider? Did you have to include that spider?" exclaims Lorica, sitting up in bed.

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The spider disappears and he sits up, too. "Sorry! It's a fake spider, it wouldn't do anything! But sorry."

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"Yeah, I know, it just startled me and I'm mostly naked which is not a condition in which I like to encounter spiders. I don't mean actually a spiderweb, anyway, more like a three dimensional grid."

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He makes the spiderweb disappear, then brings both hands together and spreads them apart, generating a spiderweb-like thing between them. "What properties should this have?"

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"Maybe it can constrict suddenly if something touches one of the strands."

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"Hmmm... Without an actual mechanism for that it'd be relying on my and whoever-else's expectations."

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"Okay, maybe it does need a spider in it. For effect."

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"But then he'd notice the wires and not actually be tripped by them."

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"Tripping isn't the point, locating and holding is."

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"Right, that's what I meant, he'd need to not know they're there otherwise he could just avoid them."

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"Not if they were dense enough."

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"Oh, you mean, like, conjuring them around him? Or around the area where he was?"

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"Yeah, what were you thinking?"

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"Conjuring it somewhere he might go so he'd run into it. His own expectations would run counter my conjuring around him so I'd need some witnesses on our side who knew what was about to go on, probably."

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"Wouldn't be too hard to get."

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"No, indeed not, especially if we were broadcasting bots' vision to tactically relevant people here in the PHQ."

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"Of course then we'd have to be authorized to take potshots at the S9."

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"They all have a kill order on their heads, I'm pretty sure we're authorized pretty much whatever's not immediately and obviously terrible."

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"I mean authorized in terms of risk-taking, not in terms of desired results."

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"Oh, yeah. I mean, they will invariably attack either Brockton Bay or wherever the next Endbringer attacks, after I Siberian giant monster butt."

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"Yeah, then we're probably good to go."

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"I can probably have something mechanically plausible if I design some sort of black box machine at the edges of the wires. It might help if some tinker actually comes up with a layout or something."

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"Not quite my area, but maybe I could finagle it."

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"Finagling is fine, it's what my power runs on, it's just, stuff that works even badly on its own is easier to make work than literal magic."

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"Fair enough."

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"Which leaves only the Siberian and Jack himself to deal with. And it still makes no sense that Jack can manage to survive."

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"Yeah. It might be something I cut through like butter but it might not."

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"I wonder if I can convince Piggot or Armsmaster to give me access to the classified info on the Nine..."

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"Good luck," she snorts. "Better luck in five and a half months, probably."

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"In five and a half months they'll already have attacked wherever they'll attack after I Siberian an Endbringer's butt."

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"Yeah, there's that. Go through Armsmaster," she recommends. "Make it all very dry and strategic."

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"Yeah, probably best way. He might still be irritated with me for not having told him about being able to Siberian stuff in the first place..."

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"Maybe, yeah. Still not as bad as Piggot directly."

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"Probably not," he agrees.

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She stretches and starts putting her clothes on.

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"Awwww, is my birthday over already?"

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"Were you not done?" she asks, pausing. "We were lying around talking about the Slaughterhouse Nine, I didn't think that was a nude activity."

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"Refractory period. Boy-me has one of those."

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"So you're not done and I should not wear a shirt."

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"Unless you want to, enthusiastic consent and all that."

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She snorts and reverses course on the shirt.

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Eeeeee! Round two! Birthdays are great.