Conrad's squad has mostly decided to just ignore what happened and just treat Conrad as having taken an unscheduled week of vacation, having returned to service immediately after his hospital stay and power testing. He's still the same person, sans backlash. Yes, the steel-gray hair and eyes are new, but they wear face-covering helmets anyway, so.

His power lets him make entities more durable, and to maintain that durability by touching them, but this durability degrades if he's not. But his own body seems to be special — he is considered to always be touching himself, so he can effortlessly maintain the durability on himself. The maintenance isn't free, but only technically — it's so cheap as to be practically negligible when only maintaining one entity. If he was to do it on his personal effects, it would be noticeable, though. Just before power testing ended, he loaded himself up with it.

Hell week was very unpleasant, but provided that his survival was guaranteed, he would totally have gone through it just for the physical benefits, even if he got no power out of it. His body feels better, feels stronger. He hasn't broken his PRs but he thinks that's just because. He suffered major injuries. And because he's still getting used to his new body.

And yes, he would be so pleased to meet him!

Then a meeting can be arranged.

James Lim is a staff sergeant with the DRT, but he is also a lot more obviously an esper than Conrad, with hair that is what platinum blond would look like if platinum blond were a colour human hair came in naturally and eyes as red as blood. He's in the meeting room waiting when Conrad arrives, and stands up when he walks in. "Hello—"

"—wait, I recognize you. You're..."

"October! Pleasure to meet you!"

???????????????????

...oh. Last year someone approached him to model for a "shirtless DRT officer calendar" and he agreed because they were paying good money. He recognizes him too, now.

"Pleasure to meet you too, January."

"Congrats on being an esper, now. Next calendar will look even better, huh?" He offers a hand to shake.

Slight smile. He shakes!

...that felt a lot better than the guy he was with for power testing. He doesn't know quite how to describe it, aside from 'good'. Maybe the closest descriptor would be 'relief'.

"Are we compatible?" he asks.

He laughs. "Well, at least from this direction we are. You've done power testing?"

Right, asymmetry in compatibility exists. "Yes, I think I am compatible with you. You are only the second esper I have tested compatibility for, but it's a significant increase in compatibility compared to the partner I had for power testing. And yes. Should I describe my power?"

"Please, go ahead." He's still holding Conrad's hand. He should instead stop and sit at the table.

Oh, he didn't even realize he forgot to let go. Oops. Yes, they can sit.

"Broadly speaking, my power grants durability to people and objects. This durability is broad and encompasses physical force, temperature, and radiation. It functions like...basically, whenever you might encounter something externally that would hurt you, it is used up instead and you are left unharmed.

I don't think it works on deprivation, suffocation, disease, or inhaled poison, but I think it won't. I don't know if it works on psychic phenomena but I think it isn't protective against them.

How much it costs to make something durable depends on its size and how much durability I want to impart to it. There's an inflection point as to how much durability I can impart where it gets very expensive very fast — I've learned to stop just before that point. For humans, that point comes to something like...being able to take one instance of lethal or maiming damage, like a gunshot, or a fall that would break a bone. The durability isn't discrete and will be reduced proportionally less for lesser injuries, like getting a cut or bruise.

I need to touch something to impart durability to it. It takes about one minute for me to impart optimal durability to a person. Once I stop touching them, the durability starts to degrade. Around ten minutes for full degradation from the optimal level. I think the rate is linear. My power always considers myself to always be in contact with me, so it's trivial for me to maintain it — I have it on right now. Maintaining durability has a backlash cost but it's very low, basically negligible unless I maintain multiple things at once for days. Maintaining durability seems to have a flat cost but it's difficult fol me to tell."

"...you should probably not maintain it even if it's cheap. It adds up, and you don't have a partner. ...unless we partner, I suppose, but that sounds pretty good, you sure you wanna stick with the DRT?"

Right. That makes sense. His power is just so useful though. He never gets bruises or scrapes or even feel terribly hot or cold, if he doesn't want to.

"I've been told that while my power isn't useless, it's not spectacular. So it seems most useful for me to stay with the DRT."

"I think yours would be on the edge of useful enough for proper esper work, if you wanted. ...and I know at least one esper whose power is substantially worse than both of ours that's with an agency anyway. Mine's more personal, though—I can form a three-dimensional map of my surroundings, inside my head. The longer somewhere stays in range with my power active, the more detail I can get, starting with something like omnidirectional sight and progressing all the way to being able to see more detail than a microscope can."

Part of the reason is that he feels attached to the DRT as an organization, having already been in it for several years, but that seems kind of pathetic to say, so he doesn't.

"That seems very useful. How much range do you have? If we partner, I could enable you to traverse dungeons more freely to map its layout. I admit that I haven't worked significantly with espers before so I don't know the tactics very well — especially because esper power diversity means tactics don't generalize well."

"Not much range, about twenty meters radius. It's not very useful for proper sensing because to get enough detail I need to stand still for a while, so I mostly use it in short bursts as a personal tactical aid."

Short range, not enough for dungeon mapping. But enough to prevent monsters or hazards from sneaking up on him.

"I see.

I have no strong attachments to Boise and my commander has given leave for me to be reassigned if I choose to partner with you." There's probably more to selecting a partner than just compatibility especially given that James would become his commanding sergeant, but. Compatibility is the main factor limiting esper effectiveness, second only to time. So all of the other factors are much less relevant, really.

"Well, that could work out, then. Have you given thought to what kinds of guiding you're okay with?"

"I am interested in trying and learning about the guiding techniques that will be the most efficient."

Eyebrow lift. "From your reaction I gather you're thinking of sexual guiding? Are you attracted to men? The efficiency isn't worth it if you're making yourself do it out of necessity, so we should only do that if you would actually be okay with it."

"Yes. And yes."

His face continues to be neutral and stoic but the effect is rather undercut by his face flushing.

"Understood. Do you have experience with men? Or sexual experience at all? —forgive me if these questions are impertinent, you don't have to answer them, I'm only asking to know what to expect," and, well, partially to get to know Conrad better, too. "I'm fine with anything."

"Yes. Only...oral..." he should really hurry up and get used to talking about these things given that he wants to be a Real Dungeoneering Esper, now, but. Intimacy is difficult. It's exposing and vulnerable. Having his power wreathe him makes him feel better about it, though.

"And mutual masturbation. Both with men."

"Oral is better for guiding than mutual masturbation, but in my experience trying to organise guiding sex so as to only do the maximally efficient guiding tends to overall work a lot less well than just treat it as regular sex. But we can figure that out as we go along, if we partner.

"I've been asking a lot of questions, do you have questions for me?"

Well if you're a competent dungeoneering esper then obviously you are able to perform the maximally efficient guiding practices he should listen to what this very experienced esper and dungeoneer has to say.

He wants to ask about how his tactics ought to change now that he has this power, but probably that's not the most important thing to be asking right now.

"In your experience, which parameters are most important in determining the success of esper partnerships, aside from guiding compatibility?"

"Personal compatibility. Finding each other at least tolerable, but ideally being friends is best. Due to the nature of the partnership most people find it difficult to treat it as a purely professional relationship, and can damage themselves by trying. But also, it's important to have clear boundaries and an understanding of what isn't acceptable behavior from your partner. Many espers end up trapped in partnerships they should not be in because they enter those partnership at relatively young ages and don't have much experience with such intimacy nor a good understanding of the spread of good relationships. Not to mention feeling like they need this relationship because otherwise they're in medical danger or can't use their powers and do their job."

He thinks about this for a moment. His backlash isn't physical — though if it gets bad enough that he Runs Off To The Woods Again, then that may have attendant physical consequences. And he doesn't worry about losing his powers and being out of a job — if he stops partnering with someone, he can just be a regular DRT officer. Which he has already been doing for four years now.

He's had friends before...but not romantic relationships. "I have never been in a romantic relationship before and from what you are saying, it seems that it may be wise to treat it as something akin to that. Could you say what you consider unacceptable behavior from a partner? And then I can think about whether I would want to add to that. Thinking about what I don't want seems easier than thinking about what I do want, and figuring don't-s seems more important."

"Fair enough. Here we run into a bit of a problem that I am, ah, 'terminally chill'. But that said, some common sense things would include: don't gate access to guiding at all behind sexual guiding specifically; don't withhold guiding as a way to incentivize or disincentivize my behavior or to punish me; don't have sex with other people without taking reasonable STD-preventing precautions."

Conrad settles down very quickly now that he has entered Practical Logistics Mode.

"Those all seem fine to me. I do not intend to do any of these things." Do people actually seriously use guiding to incentivize behaviors???????????????? Literally why would you do that?????? They could die!!!!!!

"Do some espers actually use guiding to incentivize or disincentivize behavior?" he asks. "Guiding is a necessary medical intervention and not getting it might mean they die," he adds, like that isn't information basically everyone in the world who has the barest knowledge of espers knows.

"I am not currently on PrEP but I will go on it or use protection if I start having sex with other people."

"I'm on PrEP and use protection regularly when having sex with other people," he echoes. "And yes, some espers do that, it is widely recognized as bad behavior if not downright abusive. I would typically recommend anyone finding themself in that situation to immediately break that partnership off and try to find someone else but people can be... not totally rational about this.

"Here you could also have other limits, like, say, you don't like scary movies so if we do a movie-watching guiding session we should aim for different ones, or you'd rather I not eat garlicky food or at least brush my teeth after doing so before kissing you, or similar."

Yeah, that just seems like a horrible, horrible time. But he is rather...privileged?...in having awakened late. He's an extremely late awakening. If he awoke at 16, he would probably have made worse life decisions.

"That makes sense.

This is my first partnership so I don't know what things I will find aversive. I do not have strong opinions on scary movies or garlic." Hm...he realizes that the nature of guiding means that he'll be spending a bunch of time indoors and he is not really much of an indoor person. Conrad's apartment is basically the stereotypical 'single male apartment' except that he doesn't have a TV (only a laptop) and does have a bed frame.

"I guess...these aren't really limits, but thinking about what preferences I have:

I am not the sort of person who puts on music or podcasts to fill the air, if it's quiet. So, it would be preferable if you had earphones or headphones or the like if you wanted that.

I want to try a variety of guiding methods but it is possible that they will not end up as methods that I like. And I haven't had any experience or training in guiding, so I would prefer if you were able and willing to be a patient tutor for me, with regards to that.

I'm a...I am an outdoors person and I like to spend a lot of time outside. If I was constructing a silo for myself I would prefer a tent rather than a room. This is partly due to my preferences and partly due to the nature of my backlash. But that isn't feasible or desirable for many reasons. So, should think about guiding-compatible activities I could do — aside from meditating."

"—I never told you my backlash, did I. I get hyperfocused. At low backlash levels, this is actually mildly positive for mission focus, but at high enough levels I can't walk around objects because that would involve not taking the most direct route from A to B. Everything narrows down to a point.

"I have a reasonable amount of experience with this backlash, and it's not a secret, so it's not incompatible with a silo that's more like a tent."

"You have not. My backlash is...hard to describe in words but I would put it as paranoia, avoidance, and opposition. I gain a distrust of and aversion to anything that isn't me, hasn't been wrought by me, or isn't natural. I don't become violent per se, but I become more willing to become violent to those who would prevent me from fleeing to natural places.

I think it would be useful to discuss how we should accommodate each other at moderate backlash — my backlash makes it difficult to work with others so I plan to be very conservative in using it, at least while I'm new and haven't learned better accommodation strategies. At low to moderate levels it manifests as anxiety and something like cabin fever.

Though...the possibility also exists that I might be forced to use my power a lot to save myself or someone, so if that happens I'm fine if I'm tranquilized so I can be guided without my being uncooperative...I should probably sign a statement attesting to this somewhere so you or the DRT don't get exposed to legal liability.

What accommodation strategies do you have for backlash? Hmm...keeping the floor clear and having a simple furniture layout with lots of clearance — would that be helpful?"

"It almost never gets that bad and if it does what would be most helpful would be hugging me and maybe kissing me until I can take different actions. When I am that backlashed I will barely notice you there or have a reaction to it, which can be pretty uncanny. The more normal levels of backlashed I tend to get are amenable to pointing out that my task is done, or that its parameters have changed enough that it is no longer relevant or important. I sometimes get sufficiently backlashed to in fact need to be told this because I won't think it on my own, but not often."

"I see. So...in terms of the consent situation...I am permitted to hug you or kiss you for guiding if you are backlashed enough that you are failing to take notice of me?

Hm, I see. Like a minder? To point you in the correct direction? What I'm imagining is me saying things that are...obvious to me, where I normally wouldn't say them out loud because I think they'd be obvious to you, such that it would be a little condescending to do so. I don't know how to...put that together with the fact that you will be my commanding sergeant." Normally it would be the other way around.

"You are permitted to do whatever seems necessary to remove me from a dangerous situation including bodily moving me, and to do less fraught things like hugging me or kissing me if I get that backlashed, yes.

"And it's—not exactly a minder, but not exactly not. We actually have periodic team checkins that have that purpose when clearing dungeons so you, personally, won't have any responsibility there. I will almost certainly not get so backlashed that the check ins wouldn't suffice; my power isn't so useful or instinctively used that I use more of it than I intend to or use it accidentally, and the amount of backlash at which the check ins are no longer sufficient is much higher than the amount of it at which they are necessary so there is a lot of leeway.

"I might be concerned about your backlash, if you use your power regularly in dungeons. It seems like the kind that might balloon unexpectedly and your backlash makes it actively difficult to manage."

"Yes, I agree. There's a hard limit on how quickly I can bestow durability to an entity but if I'm suddenly suffering a lot of damage, and so have to use a lot of it on myself...it is definitely possible. I was already thinking that I would take point in any squad. I wouldn't mind being sedated if my backlash gets so severe that I become uncooperative, as I've said, but if I have lingering durability, they would prevent any needles from penetrating. It doesn't make me not need to breathe, though, so I'm pretty sure gaseous sedatives would work. But it's harder to apply.

I haven't had that much experience with working while on low levels of backlash and I'm not sure what strategies would be good to help with that. When it's at low levels it feels like...distrust. Or suspicion."

"Then we should probably run drills on that. Most psychological backlashes respond pretty well to standard CBT techniques for dealing with distorted thinking and similar."

"That sounds good. I should probably start seeing a therapist too, relatedly. Does the local DRT have a directory for therapists who know how to work with DRT officers? I haven't been going to anyone, before — I don't have any mental health conditions. I'm an experienced meditator but I don't know if the sort of meditation that I do is helpful for my backlash specifically."

"We do, yeah, I can refer you."

Great!

"This is my first time doing an esper partnership, so would it be fine with you if I wrote down everything we've discussed so far? I'm not going to share it with anyone else, of course. I'm not intending it to be a — fixed contract — but I just want to make sure that I remember and can refer to it all."

"Yeah, of course!"