"At high enough backlash levels I'll stop being able to do much proactive reporting but it's bad to have me in the field at that point anyways."

(It's pathetic, the way she's dancing around talking about it.)

"Can you answer check-ins about your backlash level directly?"

"Up to a point. Use the phrase 'backlash check', it'll get me to do a mental checklist to go through. I'll give you a 0 when I'm unbacklashed and up to a 9 based on what I respond to - no response or i don't know is a 10+". 

(She and Tia had worked out the scale together, after Cara had finally fessed up. Tia had insisted, though she hadn't liked the inclusion of acute pain checks at the high end. But they're some of the last things to go, and Cara didn't want to fuck things up more, so they made it in.)

"And the safe operating range is up to -"

"At around 6 I start becoming less proactive about mentioning when something seems off or if I'm unsure of something." She takes a deep breath. "T-Tia told me that if I was above a 7 I should tell people my backlash was dangerously high and abort. I - " she cuts herself off, clearly a bit frustrated.

Probably don't tell this guy you just met that it's fine to use you as a combat drone in an emergency?, her brain chimes in, unhelpfully. (She wasn't going to! She was just going to say it's not actually dangerous for her to be at backlash levels high enough that she doesn't do tactical decision-making if someone else can!)

"Okay. You and me are both good for Arrakis but have pretty different ideal deployments within it, I'm going to be hauling people out and you're going to be engaging worms, so I don't want to fuck around with that today when I'm going to be comms-only with you much of the time - also the dust gear means approximately no in-dungeon incidental guiding."

Cara nods. "Depending on how much teleport support we have, it might be worth having me go after worms in the city?" She saw the update about the secondary portals last night, when she was on her work phone. "If I can get on top of one that's breaching I can probably stop it before it does too much damage or takes anyone, and I think that's more useful than killing one inside the dungeon..."

"That might make sense if we have enough backup, yeah. Guiding-wise I think we want you working this evening - that way I can do two deployments, one soon followed by sitting with June since she can't overnight and can co-run with Rhombus to run worms inside the dungeon into forcefields, and then one simultaneous with you and then we crash. So that gives you most of the day to talk tactics with everybody coordinating."

Flywheel nods. "Works for me. I can figure out how to be useful." Probably. It's not like - 

augh

"...and to like, decompress, catch a nap since you didn't sleep amazing..."

Sheeeee's not sure she knows how she'd do that? She's pretty sure she's more than a day of compressed, for one thing. (What happens if she's only partially decompressed? Maybe that'd make her worse instead of better. She's great at making things worse, after all!)

She shrugs awkwardly. "Yeah, maybe."

"...you should take days off even during confluences. If you want today to be one nobody ought to say boo about it."

That's almost certainly good advice and also it makes her kinda upset for some reason (because she's stupid) (...that isn't a very good explanation?) (fits the data!)

Okay. Whatever.

...is there anything that fits the data and wouldn't be a useless and stupid thing to say, though? Hmm.

"I - my fr - " lol! lmao! "- there's lots of people I care about who live here. I - I want to help."

"You can and you will and we have to plan around Arrakis being here for weeks."

(Then she can take another day off after it's been a week? She doesn't need two in a row!)

"Mmmm," she says noncommittally. "I'll think about it?"

"Okay. You're on all the appropriate feeds and such?"

"Yeah. Secondary portals appear, a worm strikes, then returns to that portal, which usually disappears but doesn't always, sometimes it sends out another worm." She pauses. "I might see if they want me to help with the hunt for the core instead of emergency worm duty, I can scan a pretty wide area for motion if I'm careful about how I do it."

"Maybe, yeah. That might have you working with June, I can explain her?"

That's - his partner with some kind of presumably-horrible can't-socialize backlash, right.

She nods, looking attentive.

"She's a speedster and she can also make stuff chase her. Her backlash will punish her in retrospect for social exposure she takes even zeroed out so you cannot acknowledge her even when she's fresh, act like she's not there and everything she's doing is a coincidence, she can listen to comms meant for everybody unless she's pushing it really hard but won't say anything and can't ask clarifying questions. She usually wears her hair visible so you never mistake her for someone you should talk to but in Arrakis she'll be more covered up and someone'll have to point her out to you if you wind up being there at the same time. Complicated pre-mission briefings go through her brother, who she - budgets for."

Oh, wow. Flywheel shudders as he explains the backlash.

 "Alright. Got it. ...really impressive of her, to do dungeons anyways."

"It is. Insofar as I can without having ever spoken to her I think she's pretty neat."

"...yeah. Same." She sighs. "Thanks for the explanation, I will do my best to act as though I'd never heard any of this where she can see it." And her best is pretty good.

Nod. "Uh, let's see, I also expect Rhombus to be pulling arguably stupid hours in Arrakis, she's Toronto's best combat esper. Forcefields, good for cutting shit or making it bounce off or doing fun platformer stuff in the air, questions about her?"

Flywheel thinks for a bit. "How good for cutting shit? And how backlash-intensive is protecting herself?" Sounds like a very good power for murdering worms, good enough it might be worth having Flywheel as a bodyguard for her instead of having her shield herself...