They can meet up once Tae-hwan is at zero, yeah.

"Hello again, Ms. Novak." He will not look sheepish about his choices with the worm. They may have been suboptimal but he still did alright, he thinks.

Valerie is pretty visibly frayed at this point. It's late in the afternoon and she has had a lot of coffee and she should really probably do a hand-off soon but she has enough context that it makes sense for her to handle this meeting (and the caffeine is still in her system; she's not going to be any more relaxed if she stops).

She nods at them. "Mr. Seo, Mr. Min. You may be happy to know that your work at Union Station both saved many lives directly and appears to have slowed the worm attacks for a while. Our consulting psychic analyst seems pretty sure that Infested Wasteland has a limit to the number of secondary portals it can have open at once - while the remaining segments of the Union Station worm is slowly attempting to withdraw, you hurt it badly enough that it hasn't been able to vacate the portal yet." 

"Oh."

"That's great to hear!"

"It's one of the more optimistic developments we've had today, yes." There is currently a really heated meeting going on about high level strategy, but Valerie is pretty sure she knows which way it's going to go, in the end.

That's not why she's here, though. "We had a few analysts review the combat footage. The thing you did when the worm was trying to crush you, making it bounce off the air - could you do that to a worm that's breaching?"

"Yes. It would become more expensive the longer I held on for, because I'd need to use my power on increasing amounts of worm, but there'd probably be a cap once it got sufficiently compressed that it started rebounding back."

"If it's not dangerously expensive for you, we'd like you to try it the next time we detect an emergence; We expect that it'd be very effective if we can get you there before the worm has a chance to get much of itself through the portal. It'll have to pull itself back through, and it'll have a hard time doing so." She looks at Min Woo-young. "How good is your reaction time?"

"Very. If I have a map in front of me and I'm expecting it it'll be less than half a second."

She looks pleased. Half a second is really good - the seismograph network has been giving them an average of two seconds of warning, now that they know what they're looking for.

"Okay. There's a worm leaving" what's left of "Dominion Centre right now, which means we're expecting a new strike in a few minutes. If you two are up for it, I'd like you to try getting there as soon as possible and stopping the worm from emerging. We had someone write up a simple map that'll ping the target location as soon as we detect it - I can send you a link."

"That would be useful, thank you. We can do that."

"Excellent. The analysts are pretty optimistic about this one." The link shows up in both of their DMs. "Do either of you need anything right now?"

"Not right now, but we will probably need a place to stay overnight. We're pretty jetlagged and running on fumes a bit."

She doesn't frown, but someone should have gotten these two that already. Not surprising, though, that things slip through the cracks... she should make sure Baek Ji-woo has somewhere to stay as well.

"I can get a silo reserved for the two of you about 10 km out of the danger zone" (over in Brampton, maybe?) "and send you the coordinates, if that works for the two of you."

"Yeah, that sounds good."

"Alright. It shouldn't take me very long. Please feel free to reach out if you need anything else, and goo-"

The map pings!

He did say half a second.

Vworp.

HELLOOOOOOOOOO IT IS WORM TI-

Ha ha no.

-ME oh dear

This is still mostly experimental so he's watching the effect to see what happens. At an arbitrarily chosen distance above from the portal, any worm mass that encounters it will be momentarily locked to Tae-hwan's frame of reference, in a rapidly pulsating pattern. It has to be rapidly pulsating because if he merely locks it there, that will not have the effect of allowing the worm to rebound as if it were a wall, and would instead lock it in place there, which would be much more expensive in backlash.

So, how much damage does that do?

The rumbling of the floor beneath them is replaced with a fascinating (and rather horrifying) squelching noise as the worm's head is incrementally flattened against Tae-hwan's power and forced backwards through the worm segments. 

It can't scream, what with its mouth segment being entirely destroyed, or writhe in pain, what with it being trapped in a tunnel that fits exactly it and its digging apparatus squashed flat. But it would be doing both of those things, if it could.

"Get fu-ucked~" he singsongs, starting to bounce in place.

:(

There's a lot of civilians in this building who've been screaming and running away from the perceived center of the rumbling! 

...well, most of them are still doing that, actually.

Yeah this is extremely valid of them! They should in fact probably evacuate! But probably this worm is not actually going to get to them! It might've messed with the foundations, though.

Oh, wow.

The DRT will shortly arrive on-scene, evacuate the building, and then bring a sensor to confirm the results, but the outcome is promising. 

Tae-hwan is so cute when he gets to play hero.

Cara only has a little bit of backlash when she gets the message asking her if she can meet up with Seo Tae-hwan and get a rundown on how he's been using his power and see if she can do something similar, so before she responds on my way she remembers to stops herself and think about whether or not that's actually what she wants to be doing right now. 

But it's a confluence and there's a fucking A-tier dungeon breach destroying her favorite city, so obviously she's going. (She texts Traceless with an update on what she's doing and where as she waits for the self-driving car to come get her.)

Bon courage!

Merci!

She looks up Seo Tae-hwan on the ride over.

Right, she thought she recognized the name, he's one of the three Quasar espers with a power similar to hers - his is the one that's the least similar, though, it's about relative velocities and notably totally ignores conservation of energy.

Cara's a lot better at the relevant kinds of physics than she was a year ago. She doesn't like it any more than she used to (she might like it a lot less, actually) but it's part of the job, and it's not like it was a bad use of her backlashed time.

Flywheel should be there in a few minutes.

Roger that.

And indeed, a few minutes later, Flywheel arrives! She's a young woman wearing what looks like a motorcycler's outfit, though she's currently missing the jacket and helmet (she's carrying a pretty big duffel bag and a backpack that's emitting a quiet hum, though, so maybe they're in one of those?).

She has deep blue eyes and hair that matches it. Like many espers, she's very attractive to conventional sensibilities. (And she looks like she's spent a lot of time crying, recently.)

As she approaches Seo Tae-hwan and his partner, she bows. "Seo Tae-hwan-nim, it's an honor."

Blink. "You, uh, really don't need to call me that, it's cool, I'm not all that." Wow it sounds so much weirder in English. "Um, hi. Nice to meet you?"

UGH she's being weird already get over yourself. There's more important things going on here.

"Ah, sorry. I'm Flywheel. I was told to come here and meet you for power tes -" 

wait is that Min Woo-young

"Hello. It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Min Woo-young," he says, bowing.

...his hyung is so ridiculous.

Bow!!

"The pleasure is all mine! I -" do not say 'I wrote my final paper in Modern Logistics on you' do not do not do not "- ah, I'm a fan of your work."

...That's. A bit better but she still kinda hates it.

"Oh! Thank you, it's not really all that."

Flywheel can't help raising an eyebrow. "Your power singlehandedl-" shut up shut up shut up! 

"- ah, I mean. I think this is a matter on which reasonable people might disagree," she says lightly, which again is not the thing she super wanted to be saying but it's better than saying nothing or fumbling and her idiot mouth did not leave her a lot of options!

"Hyung was just being Korean about it," Tae-hwan says in a stage whisper.

Flywheel opens her mouth and then - pauses -

"Well, that's his prerogative, given that he is in fact Korean." The delivery and facial expressions are pretty good, if you ignore the seconds-long loading screen. (Maybe it's her backlash?)

"You know, I have this friend, he's really smart and stuff, he went to SNU for econ, and when I introduced him to hyung after we'd just partnered he almost had a conniption. I think he might've said something like that, too, how hyung had singlehandedly revolutionised the tranportation industry in Korea... That was like five years ago though."

"Tae-hwannnn, you're embarrassing me."

They're cute! ...ow?

...if she's pretending she knows how to be a person, she could... ally with her fellow kinetic esper, and -

Flywheel nods cheerfully. "Oh, yeah, that's pretty out of date." She pauses, just a moment. "It's worldwide, now. The best postcog in the world had to found a think-tank just to figure out how we'll all cope when he retires."

"Don't you guys have some power thingamajig to talk about or something?"

"We probably do but I can't just let an opportunity to tease you just pass me by like that."

Right. (Dipshit. Idiot. Moron.)

"Ah, yeah! Sorry." (Fuckhead. Nimrod. Fool.)

She pauses a bit, to wait and see if she's supposed to talk first. (Imbecile. Dimwit. Dunce.)

"Sooo, how much do you know about my power? If anything."

"Not a ton? You can pick two things and fix their velocities relative to each other, in a way that can either produce or destroy kinetic energy and costs you more backlash the longer you hold things together and the more massive they are?" (Dummy. Simpleton. Numbskull.)

"Cost in mass isn't that high. Cost in mass difference is higher, and cost in speed difference is even higher.

"I can be pretty creative with it, though. I could simulate something like a forcefield with it, which I've been using to squish the worms while they breach, and the first worm I fought I locked its head segment to a bullet for like a tenth of a second and then it no longer had a head."

Flywheel considers this. "If one of the objects accelerates after you're holding them, is that extra cost?" (Dullard. Stupid. Airhead.)

"Yes, but not that much extra cost, and it depends on where the acceleration comes from exactly."

She nods. "My power is - momentum transfers, basically, most efficiently to or from me but I can do a pair of transfers almost instantly so in practice it doesn't matter. Since my power respects kinetic energy conservation and yours doesn't, we might be able to do something pretty powerful together?" (Bête. Crétine. Débile.)

"Oh. Probably! I'm very bad at physics, though. You'd think five years doing this would make me better at it but it did not."

She shrugs. "Ah, yeah. Physics is... really annoying, I get it." (Imbécile. ...that's a cognate, does it really count? Whatever. This is fucking stupid.)

"You reckon Seungjoo-sunbae's still awake at this hour? He's really good at this."

"Hmmmmm."

"We can always check!"

"Assuming Flywheel wasn't also just being Korean and actually turns out to have a ton of good ideas, at least."

"Ah. I wouldn't say a ton, but - if one of us is holding the other, you lock us to a worm in motion, and then I grab the worm's momentum and transfer it to us in the other direction... the worm comes along, right? At - substantially increased speed." (Idiot. Idiot. can we stop now-)

"Hang on say that again more slowly I think I'm stupid."

She starts to open her mouth to literally say it more slowly again, because her backlash is fucking stupid. She bites her cheek to stop herself.

Oh hey it's the part of the movie where the cool action hero yells "In English, nerd!" to their nerd (though presumably in this case it being in English is part of the problem! But she can't explain it Korean because she never got good at Korean just like she's never actually gotten good at anything that matters)  ...man it's actually abstractly funny to be on this side of this kind of interaction, she's so used to being the idiot who needs it broken down...

None of that was useful!!!, she snarls at her brain, which makes things quieter, at least for a moment.

...It's relevant that he's not a native English-speaker?, part of her pipes up, which. Yeah, fair.

"Ah, sorry," she says, because she shouldn't be quiet for too long. "Let me see if I can break it down..." is there anything around here she can use for props? (If not, she'll dig into her bag.)

(They're in some kind of office building that's been temporarily repurposed - there's a whiteboard on the wall.)

"Oh, good -" Cara will attempt to draw her idea out on the whiteboard! (Her running internal critique of her artistic skills has been omitted for brevity, but it is continuous and vicious.)

Tae-hwan stares at it and hmms.

"So I think as described the plan actually makes your power fight mine, 'cause if I'm attached to the worm and then the worm's momentum goes to me my power is trying to make me stop moving and your power is trying to make me move, but I can swap the targets after I'm locked onto the worm and make the worm be locked onto me instead, and if we time that right it just works."

Wow, it's like you didn't know how his power worked at alllll (...she said didn't know a ton! that was correct! fuck off!)

"Okay, nice. If you give me some kind of signal that involves motion - flip your power as you move an arm, or something - I can react to that with mine almost instantly, if I know in advance. Side effect of how I do targeting." She looks at the diagram. "I'll need to catch us before we hit the ground, after, but that's straightforward. And it should be very very bad for the worm."

"I can do that, yeah. But it'll also be noticeable because I will suddenly be affected by gravity.

"Oh I'm so stoked we're gonna be so deadly."

Awwww. His smile is infectious even if she's too broken to really feel anything about it

"The gravity might be harder for me to notice when I'm using my power." (that's not the relevant thing, it's the timing it's fine to not fully lay out the reasoning, we are being social) "But yeah! Worms won't know what hit 'em."

"Wanna try it out on something less deadly than a worm to get the timing right? —also how're you on backlash, who're you partnering with?"

Getting three questions in a row is an interesting thing for her backlash!

Luckily enough, she's low enough that she can just consider them and answer how she likes, instead of working through them in order (thank fucking god, can you imagine (yes, she can! vividly!))

How is she on backlash! Good question.

0. Is her mouth dry - Can't tell.
1. Does she feel gross (physically) - ...can't tell?
2. Is she tired (physically) - no, she's wide awake.

"I have a bit of backlash but not much? And, um -" 

(Her face deflates very noticeably.)

"I - don't have a primary partner anym - " (stupid, stupid) "- at the moment. Traceless has been guiding me but he also has to guide" (don't share information about June you are not going to explain her whole deal perfectly and if these two need to know someone better than you at this will handle it!) "his other partner. I should probably check with him before picking up much more." she shrugs awkwardly. 

"Oh, hmmmm..."

"Oh yeah we should check for compat."

Flywheel offers her hand.

(She - doesn't flinch. It's fine. That's fine. She would have done this anyways. Her backlash just saved her the time.)

Touch—

—nyeh.

Touch—

—oh, okay!

She is compatible with Min Woo-young that is- Nope! She's going to be normal about it.

"Oh, that's nice." Definitely a fair bit less compatibility than with Traceless or Tia but she can work with it.

(...wow, she hasn't had dumb feelings about how she's more compatible with Traceless than she is was with Tia yet! She should really schedule some time for that, it seems like the kind of thing she would want to be insane and stupid about...)

"So that can buy you a little bit of leeway, depending."

depending on - oh, on whether she's up for higher intensity guiding with him, presumably.

- wait, hold up, does that mean Min Woo-young is willing to make out with her -

Okay! Well! She might be (definitely is) insane and broken and stupid, but she's not insane and broken and stupid enough to pass on the chance to make out with Min Woo-young. (Kinda fucked up of her when Tia it's to save the city fuck off!)

"...I am potentially interested in purchasing some amount of leeway, if you're selling," she says, which is a terrible line but it communicates the thing she wants to communicate, which is that while she's obviously kind of a mess she is the kind of a mess that is down for strategically-indicated makeouts with one of the world's major economic powers.

Regardless of whether it's a terrible line it's making him giggle. "Yeah, I think I am."

Oh yay, she's getting a good grade at flirting with Min Woo-young, which is normal to want and possible to achieve! (...kinda cringe, though.)

Her face lights up about this. (...some other parts of her body language get a bit more tense, which is a bit confusing but probably easy to miss. Flywheel certainly misses it.)

Woo-young does not. "What would you be comfortable with?"

...how the fuck is she supposed to know the answer to that and does it really matter it matters to him, stupid, otherwise he wouldn't have asked!

...okay, stop being a whiny moron. Sure, she really doesn't like introspection (obviously! she doesn't like cringe-based humor or horror movies!), but it's what he wants her to do, and - just because she doesn't like it doesn't mean she can't do it.

...she could answer this question if it was someone else by asking and watching their reactions. So she can just - do that to herself, right?

"Shirtless makeouts would be fine," she says, after thinking it through. (More than that would make too many parts of her stupid, worthless brain flinch for it to be reasonable to call herself comfortable, apparently.)

"Alright. So, uh, do you want to try to hit zero before doing some powers testing?"

Oh, yeah, that'd probably be smart. (which is why she didn't think of it, one assumes.) 

Flywheel nods and then approaches, a bit shyly. 

"I'll give you some privacy. Hyung, TP me somewhere useful so you can guide her better."

And now Tae-hwan is Elsewhere, an event which is shortly followed by Woo-young being topless.

...did he just teleport his shirt off? That's... abstractly hot? (don't make it weird?? These are Professional Makeouts.) ...... Why only abstractly hot? man who give a shit 

Flywheel can less-flashily remove her own shirt (though not her bra) and close the distance between them, and she can do all of that without seeming stressed! (She can tell she's stressed, but that's fine. She wants this.)

Uh huh.

Anyway, makeouts can ensue. It turns out that he is, in fact, pretty good with his tongue. Benefits of having a paralysis backlash.

Oh ok yeah wow he's, uh, distractingly good at that! Flywheel can be an active and appreciative recipient of his tongue. 

(She's a bit hesitant, at times, but she's definitely enjoying herself, and gets a bit more involved in the process as her backlash gets cleared.)

Excellent! Then hopefully they can get her to zero pretty soon.

(He's glad he can be the source of one positive experience for her. It does not seem like she's had many of those, recently, from her... everything.)

It's nice. Her brain tries to make withering commentary or remind her of Tia or just call her an idiot. She lets it wash over her. She knows - Tia's gone and it's her fault, she's making stupid choices because she's an idiot, she's broken and a burden and horribly selfish. Right now, she doesn't really care? She's making out with Min Woo-young (who is, in addition to being the most impactful esper of all time, a really good kisser...)

It only takes about 10 minutes of this to clear her backlash.

Oh huh he thought she had more backlash than that, nice.

He, uh, got more than 10 minutes of backlash from teleporting Tae-hwan just now. Lol.

(Flywheel hasn't yet gotten enough data points to pick up on the pattern where most of her compatibilities are asymmetric in her guiding favor. Given her mental state, this is probably for the best?)

She's (uncomplicatedly endorsedly) happy to keep making out until MWY is zero'd out. 

And now he is!

"Pleasure doing business with you."

Flywheel laughs, just a bit, and Woo-young can probably tell that it's actually genuine. "Likewise!" 

She looks around. "Ah, uh - where did you send him?" 

"A C-rank he was a maybe on going to in case you guys didn't turn out to combo well. He should be done in like ten to twenty maybe."

Oh, that makes sense. She nods.

...but, uh, now what. 

They could make out more? But - it's not strategically indicated and she doesn't want to assume it's more than business, for him (she could just ask she doesn't want to, apparently she could guess based on his body language she really doesn't want to, apparently?)

She could stand around awkwardly! That's always an option. (she could go looking for the moon, that's an option too she's not! doing that!)

She could talk to him. (Seems kinda mean it's not like there's anyone else for him to talk to! She can keep pretending to be a person for a bit longer, it's not going to kill either of them.)

"How long have the two of you been partnered?" (Don't think about Tia don't think about Tia don't think about Tia)

"About five and a half years, now? Fresh out of his awakening."

"Did you meet through Quasar?"  (She's pretty sure she remembers reading that most mixers in guild countries are hosted by guilds, but it's always possible something else happened...)

"Yeah. I was just out a partner who—was not thrilled when I came out as bi. And Tae-hwan had awakened like... two weeks earlier if I recall correctly? And had done a little bit of power testing but not a ton because his backlash really really sucks if it goes unguided and also his power was kinda complicated to use. But we turned out really really compatible and then Choi Seungjoo—that's another Quasar esper with a somewhat similar power, I mentioned him earlier—coached him in some unofficial power testing and we found out his power was actually great."

"...they dumped you as a partner because you came out as bi???" She knew that there's a fair bit of homophobia in Korean culture, but - among espers, it seems so - obviously dysfunctional - (...people do stupid dysfunctional things all the time! this shouldn't be surprising! She's just an idiot!)

"And yeah. Choi Seungjoo's power is very similar to mine; when we were figuring out how to use my power we looked into how he used his." (Tia's idea - she'd had Cara write to him to ask for more information and suggestions, which had been a good idea.)

"Yeah basically. And we weren't really all that compatible, not as much as I am with Tae-hwan, both in terms of backlash and on a personal level, so all in all it was a very good trade. So to speak. He's one of my three favourite people in the world."

Awwwww. (He so obviously means it, too. It's painful cute.)

"If you don't mind my asking, who are the other two?" (And if you do mind me asking, feel free to teleport me into the ocean or something, that'd be fine. is she listening to herself right now. who even thinks things like that. what's wrong with her. you know, besides the -)

"My twin sister Min Ha-young and my best friend Lee Tae-gun."

Oh, huh, he's a twin. Neat. (And they're still close, which is neat. She's mostly seen twins drift apart the way siblings often do, but... she thinks it's neat, when they don't.)

And wow she knew they were in the same guild, but she had no idea he was best friends with Korea's Skybreaker don't call him that! It's a rude way to talk about Lee Tae-gun, even if people online make the comparison all the time! (Asshole. Fuckhead. Shi - okay no she's tired of this one she's going to stop now.) 

(...it's frustrating to be meeting an esper she thought was so cool she wrote a term paper on the impacts of his power and to be this bad at talking to him. Why did it have to be today. would it really have been any better, two days ago? what the fuck is wrong with her. rhetorical, obviously, she knows what's wrong with her)

"Oh, gosh. Is h-" (hey idiot, the most well-known thing about LTG beyond the fact that he regularly solos A-tier dungeons is that he is very private (so private that nobody knows who he's been partnered with for the last five years, which is really unusual in Korean esper culture)! Maybe don't offend his best friend by being nosy at first mention of him!)

"-err, do the two of you work dungeons together sometimes?"

(Wow! Smooth! Nailed it! Good job! Definitely nobody will have noticed.)

"Sometimes! But honestly everyone in Korea does dungeons with him sometimes, he does like, three to six dungeons a day, six days a week, the madman."

Oh, she knew that at one point. (They looked at outliers in addition to averages, when Tia and her were deciding how often she should do dungeons a conversation it really might have been smart to revisit, once they both knew more about her backlash! But she kept putting off bringing it up, because she's a coward.)

"Man. That really is a lot of dungeons." (Wow! What incredible conversational skills! She's really acing this!!)

"You actually don't know the half of it."

hey hyung

you two decent?

i need makeouts

Woo-young opens his messages and blinks. "Tae-hwan's out of the dungeon."

It's fucked up that she feels relief about this. Min Woo-young is in addition to being an economic powerhouse and a great kisser, genuinely an interesting person to talk to! And she! likes! talking to people! (...or liked, apparently. Maybe she doesn't, anymore! That's fine! Things change!) But it is what she feels, even though she's pretty sure she manages to hide it completely.

"Oh, nice. I" (...huh why is she so hungr - right) "should get something to eat, actually. I can go do that while you guide him?" (hey, idiot -) "want me to bring back something for the two of you? There's good Chinese food around here."

"Oh I'm down. He and I aren't picky, you can get us whatever. Incoming."

Now here's Tae-hwan, hopping from foot to foot and immediately picking Woo-young up into a bridal carry and starting to jog around in circles while carrying him. "Hi, Flywheel."

...they are really cute together (and it hurts, and - probably it's just that Tia is dead!  'just'. She's dead and you're saying 'just'. She's barely been dead a day and -)

"Hi! I'm going to go grab some Chinese food for the three of us, I sorta forgot breakfast. Be back in a bit!" 

"Oh yeah okay sounds good, I'll have whatever I'm not picky."

"Meat or not? Spicy?" (She can leave her bag here, she won't need it to go get some takeout...)

"We're Korean, spice us up."

"You heard 'im."

This gets a genuine-looking smile out of her! "Got it. I'll be back in a bit." 

And she dips out of the room, only mocking herself a little bit as she does. 

And in order to guide Tae-hwan, Woo-young teleports them both across the city, then back here, then to the private room, then out of their clothes and onto the bed.

"It's so hot when you do that," he says, and then it's time for some guiding.

She finds a Chinese place and puts in three orders (She'll get... one beef and one tofu thing, both spicy, for the two of them, and get the same kind of fake duck she got last night but in a very different dish.)

Then she texts Paula, because Traceless is either in a dungeon or guiding with June.

This is Flywheel, on my work phone. Turns out I'm compatible with Min Woo-young, so I'm going to test a power synergy with his partner Seo Tae-hwan and get guided back down afterwards. 

I should still be able to deploy with Traceless this evening, but if the synergy works it could be very valuable. 

great!

I'll touch base with quasar

need anything else from me?

Let Traceless know, I guess? And when he gets textable maybe have him reach out and touch base, though I will try and keep you informed also. 

At some point I should probably give you a rundown on my backlash because it is often operationally relevant but I think I'd want to meet at least via video call before that.

But in very broad strokes - it's psychological, and at very high levels I won't always prioritize avoid gaining more. I have a year of experience managing it with some help from my old agent, and I might try offloading some of that onto you even without explaining much, if that works for you.

(She's sitting down in the lobby of the Chinese place as she waits for takeout, so it doesn't matter that her hands are shaking badly enough that she might drop her phone. She hates doesn't love doing this but she wants to be useful and she is not very useful if she sits on the sidelines while Arrakis destroys Toronto and she also won't be very useful if takes up a bunch of people's time and effort and then gets herself killed, so she's not going to do that even if the process is miserable vaguely unpleasant.)

when is good for a call? fine if you don't know yet

have you ever gotten to the point where new backlash flips to chronic immediately or is that only a theoretical risk so far

definitely good to have you on overnights, traceless is very versatile and held back by guiding rate, also good he can keep you in the game

condolences though, let me know if you need anything!!

Don't know yet but I'll let you know and try and make it sooner rather than later.

Only once, during initial power testing. I know the limits a lot better, now.

I'll try to, yeah. 

Thanks for picking me up on short notice. And for looking after Traceless.

okay great well don't do that again 👍

it's what I do!! good luck out there!

Yeah she will get right on not doing that! Thanks, Paula! 

...the worst part is it's technically theoretically useful; it's something she can lean on if she goes totally insane, at least if she's slightly backlashed. (maybe she should pick up a bit of backlash, just to be safe wow what a stupid fucking idiot idea from a stupid fucking idiot brain! she's not doing that! valid to preserve the option of killing herself instantly that's not why she's not doing it)

She waits for the food pickup.

"So," Tae-hwan begins when they're done with the main event, "did you, uh..."

"Hmm?"

"...figure out what's up with her?"

"Oh. We didn't talk much, I mean, we just made out. But, uh, I think it's kind of obvious?"

"Not all of us have your ability to read people, hyung."

"Well, she's clearly lost a partner. Not sure if the partner died or just left her. Shit timing if the latter. And she's compatible with Traceless? The blog guy. Who's apparently around."

"'The blog guy'."

"I'll link you it."

"...'kay. Uh, should she... be... doing stuff? Without a proper partner?"

"She's an adult, we're not in charge of her. Presumably her agent is on top of it all."

"I don't trust agencies. They're sus."

"I could DM Traceless to see if he's on top of it or has any context? If it'll assuage your worries."

"I mean, I guess that's better than nothing, but he's just some guy. And she looks kind of scrungled."

"She looks so scrungled. Maybe we should make use of one of those feedback forms prez mentioned some espers have to check that they're, like, doing okay. At least she should probably get some sleep tonight.

"...but I think she might be from Toronto, and I don't know that I'd be able to rest until I saved Seoul, if Arrakis had shown up there."

"...yeah. Good point."

"I'll see what the vibes are like later today."

"Alright. Thanks, hyung."

Flywheel returns with their food, not looking especially scrungled at the moment. She's got a very spicy beef and a very spicy tofu dish for them to divide between them as they see fit. (She's got a fake meat thing at the same level of spice.)

Oooh nice. They'll split half and half.

"Oh wow you found something actually spicy, I didn't know North America had that," Tae-hwan says. "This is tasty."

Flywheel grins. "There's lots of good spicy food here if you know where to look! People bring their traditions and cuisines with them when they move, it's great." Pause. "I did have to learn learn how to pronounce dish names without a white person accent to get them to take me seriously when I ask for the extra spicy, but I like learning that kind of stuff anyways." (Well. Used to like it. Might like it again someday. who! give a shit!!)  

"Say 'tteokbokki'."

"Tae-hwan..."

"What? We're bonding! Kinetic espers should be friends!"

Flywheel giggles. "It's an important part of teamwork! -say it one more time?" (Sorry I was busy being stupid and am not 100% sure I caught it and don't want to make a fool of myself!)

"'Tteokbokki'."

"Tteokbokki?" Her pronunciation isn't perfect, but it's surprisingly good. (She's always paid a lot of attention to the sounds a language uses, and she did take a few years of Korean.)

"Passable. Seven out of ten."

"He's just teasing you, it was really good."

Flywheel finishes the bite she's eating. "Hmmm. Say it one more time?" (this is an insane thing to be competitive about! What are you doing! Why are you like this! she doesn't know!! But she wants to see if she can do better than a 7 out of 10...)

"'Tteokbokki'. 'Tteok'-'bokk'-'i'."

Huh. Okay, hm. "Tteok... Tteok...Tteok-bokk-i... Tteokbokki?" (She's not quite nailing the 'kk' sound, but she's got the rest of it basically down.)

"...okay that is very impressive actually. Is this the first time you heard this word? I don't think I can get rid of my accent in English like that."

(Yes! Sweet success hey, quick question! Why does she care about this, again? Is it because she's stupid?)

"Don't think I've heard the word before, but - I did take two years of Korean in undergrad? And... I have a decent ear for languages." (And accents! Hey, remember when -)

"How did you take two years of Korean and never hear this word before, what kind of degenerate teaches people Korean and does not introduce them to tteokbokki, I think this might be a crime. I might need to get Interpol involved."

"...iiit is possible I have heard it and forgot? I'm good at sounds but pretty bad at vocab, and -" and she hasn't eaten Korean food in a while!! But she really doesn't want to explain why, because if she explains it wrong maybe they'll think Tia is terrible, she's pretty sure Traceless already kind of does and she doesn't want that to be how people remember her -

"Well I'm gonna need to take you somewhere to eat proper tteokbokki. It's only fair."

Oh! Maybe she's not totally failing at being a person after all? "I'd really like that."

"Cool! After this stupid confluence is over, then."

She smiles. "Looking forward to it!" (...it takes her a few moments to realize she means that. Which is weird. And kinda fucked up of her, if you think about it? She's not supposed to be having a good time!!)

So scrungled.

But speaking of the confluence they should finish eating and get to doing some power stuff so they can kill big monsters.

Right, yeah. Flywheel can hurry up and finish her food.

This B rank dungeon has car monsters that try and run invaders over, which are a fair bit heavier than Flywheel and also much lighter than a sandworm, which seems like a good place to test their plan. 

Tae-hwan and Flywheel could probably have taken these cars on their own, but that is also the best kind of way to test their synergy. He's carrying Flywheel on his back, since then her power can consider both of them to be "the same thing", and they can get to practise timing!

A minivan with red racing stripes notices them with an excited beep of its horn and starts heading their way, picking up speed. 

Flywheel is alert, keeping track of the distance between them very carefully. "Ready."

As agreed, she'll dip into her power as soon as he links the two of them and the car, and she'll get the signal there. 

He jumps, so that they won't get dragged along the asphalt—it wouldn't hurt them, it would hurt the asphalt and be more backlash intensive—which causes both of them to be flying in the air going at the same velocity as the van, as if there was an invisible solid beam of matter attaching them to the van. Then he swaps the target so that it's the van that's attached to him instead, gravity starts to take effect, he gives the signal—

And as he jumps, Flywheel focuses.

She's at the center of the world. She's moving at 30 meters per second.

There's a minivan, moving at 30 meters per second. She could take its energy, if she wants.

The minivan is has about 12 times as much mass as Tae-hwan and Flywheel combined.

Kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared. Transfering kinetic energy from a bigger object to a smaller one scales the velocity by square root of their mass ratio.

When Flywheel takes car's kinetic energy, the two of them go flying in a slightly-upwards arc at over 100 meters per second.

And now they are no longer bound to the van.

(This is extremely cool wheeeeee~)

As she feels the link drop (air resistance causing their relative positions and velocities to begin to diverge), Flywheel tucks their momentum safely into her backpack, and the two of them fall gently to the ground.

The minivan, on the other hand, is going very fast.

It careens violently into three different cars on the path Flywheel picked out for it, its horn honking increasingly desperately as it accrues damage in the process. 

Then, with a horrifying screech of metal, it slams into the side of an unsuspecting semi-truck and fragments.

(The semi teeters, its own horn blaring angrily at this unexpected development, and then tips over with a resounding crash.)

"Hehehehehe. I enjoyed that."

Flywheel now just picked up a decent chunk of backlash (more than she had earlier in the day), but she thought about how she wanted to act beforehand, and is currently leaning into that. (This won't work reliably, especially if she gets more backlashed. But it's better than nothing.)

"Me too," she says, smiling. "-the timing will be harder for when you let go, if it's a breaching worm, because we'll be going much faster after I use my power, but -" she glances over at the fallen semi-trunk, still honking angrily "- that was pretty effective." 

"It was! I think we can do it."

"Yeah!" (Wow, what a useful contribution to the conversation! Good work, Cara!)

And they can get out of the dungeon and report their findings to Min Woo-young and also the DRT coordinator who'd suggested the power combination?

Sounds good! And then they can go kill some worms.

Flywheel has a to-do list item to text her agent, so she does, looping Traceless in.

Power synergy worked. We're going to try it on a worm. Currently at a 3 on my backlash scale. Can do this up till a 7, then I should either get guiding or head back to the silo to wait for Traceless.

Can you check in with me after we hit a worm about my backlash level? 

Absolutely

Paula Bescond has sent you a location sharing request

So I'll know where to send him if that comes up

Flywheel accepted your location sharing request! 

👍

"Good to go," she tells Min Woo-young and Seo Tae-hawn.

So he can look at a map and teleport them to the nearest emergency.

There isn't one. Or, at least, not one they should go to, no worms just about to breach.

Oh. Then... they wait, he supposes. He's not that backlashed so he can just be a bit fidgety in place.

He's still holding her, which is - well, she's not sure how she feels about it! She knows she doesn't viscerally hate it, at least. But - it seems like the kind of thing she'd think was nice, probably.

"So... what's the weirdest dungeon you two have been in recently?" (When she asked, Min Woo-young said it was okay to chat while he stares at the map - it won't impact his reaction times.) 

Kind of a stupid question to ask, though. When did she get so bad at small talk - don't think about it

"Does non-Euclidean bullshit count as weird or do I get sent to those too often so now they're normal?" he wonders, to Tae-hwan.

"I'd really have thought you'd have gotten used to them by now."

He takes a second to parse the verb tenses there. "They still suck."

"Oooh. I've only been into two of those, and they'd already been mapped by the time I went in there." (Because her sensing "still needed work", or something, ugh. Why is she still annoyed about that??? Kinda insane and also insensitive?)

"I'm one of the few teleporters who doesn't really get a lot of penalties from fucked up geometry so people insist on sending me. I do need some live feeds to work best but if I have them I'm good. But also they give me such a headache."

Can she pat his hand in commiseration? (...obviously she can. Should she? Would it be weird? Obviously it'd be weird, she's nobody ??we just made out for like twenty minutes??)

She pats his hand. "There, there."

That bizarrely causes him to start giggling kind of uncontrollably.

(She is so scrungled.)

(If he's not laughing too hard to pay attention to her, he'll probably notice when her telltale signs of confusion fade into muted distress.)

Augh. He noticed - he's been noticing -

What, was this not what you wanted when you decided to roam the city while obviously fucked up? Traceless tried to tell you to take the day off! How insanely arrogant would you even have to be to think you could hide all of this? You showed up with eyes red from crying! You can't do that and then be surprised that people notice - well, I mean, you could, if you were a fucking moron,

(She doesn't try to argue with herself. She doesn't have any defense to raise.)

"—sorry, I wasn't laughing at you, it was just—a cute gesture, is all."

Hyung's doing a social thing again.

Flywheel just shrugs uncomfortably, cheerful demeanor gone. "It's fine," she says quietly. "Sorry, I know I'm not very ok, I just -" 

(...thought he was too stupid to notice? wanted to believe she wasn't making them feel weird or concerned? was enjoying pretending at being likeable and interesting? all of the above?)

...she doesn't finish her sentence.

...she's reminding him of someone he knows, right now. Which is funny because they're not alike at all but. That whole... thing, right there, that she's doing.

"You don't need to apologise for not being okay. Not being okay isn't a thing you're doing to me, and being okay isn't a thing you owe me."

Did they just have a telepathic conversation about how scrungled she is. He's still carrying her.

"When I take you to eat tteokbokki maybe you still won't be okay but at least you'll be having tteokbokki and that's better than not that."

It's deeply unclear if the sound she makes as she buries her head in his shoulder is closer to a laugh or a sob. (It's very clearly at least a bit of both.)

"It does sound a lot better than not that," she says weakly. "Looking forward to it."

(And who knows? Maybe tteokbokki will fix her.) 

"...tteok-bokk-i," she mumbles.

He sporfles.

"Worm," he warns, and they have half a second to mentally prepare.

Vworp.

The ground rumbles, cracks forming in the marble flooring.

(The nearby people are screaming and running. Some of them might even escape in time, on their own.)

HELLOOOOOOOOOO IT IS KINETIC ESPERS TIME!!

???These are like. Tiny little guys? They're not the [Food] for [Home] kind, but they're not even... doing anything...

Flywheel dips into her power as soon as she finishes eyeballing distances and volumes, tapping Tae-hwan once to let him know she's ready and on-the-ball.

The worm is breaching, so it is really quite obvious when they're locked on as they start moving upwards very fast, and he switches power targets immediately and gives her the signal—

And its kinetic energy is theirs, now, and the two of them are moving straight down so absurdly fast-

When they did this with a minivan, 12 times as massive as them and moving at about 30 m/s, the result was memorable. 

The worm is only moving a bit faster than that! But it is well over an order of magnitude more massive. And Tae-hwan's power is anchored to the head, not the entire thing.

The worm inverts, the softer parts of its head fragmenting as they ruinously force their way through its body.

And then, before the two of them get pancaked in the process, Flywheel pushes the energy back into one of her projectiles, aimed straight through the worm.

(She realized, as they arrived, that she's not sure if her flywheel is even rated for this many RPMs, and if it fails... well, she and Tae-hwan would definitely die. If she was very lucky, it might only be the two of them. So the energy has to go somewhere else.)

The baseball-sized projectile screams through the air, easily overtaking the still-moving pieces of wormhead and shedding so much energy to friction that it turns to molten metal at around the same time it passes through the portal below them and into Arrakis itself and the worm-segments that had been waiting their turn to pass through. (They die.)

"Ayo???"

Flywheel sags in his arms a bit.

"Hey hyung I think you should probably hug us."

"On it."

He's on it.

...
5. Is she hungry or thirsty... oh, a bit thirsty, actually.

"Moderately backlashed," she reports mechanically.

(...she's trying to be sociable...) "...you should see the other guy."

He cracks up again. "I did see the other guy! It looked fucked up!"

Flywheel can manage a weak giggle! (Min Woo-young can tell she's mostly doing it on autopilot, though.) "Yeah."

"I'm gonna teleport us back and do some guiding." Vworp. "She's in a worse spot than you so I'll do her first."

"Can I watch?"

"—wait, bad thing to say while holding a girl," he puts the girl down and takes a step back.

The girl doesn't seem like she has much of an opinion on the question!

Probably the backlash! She said earlier makeouts are okay when she is moderately backlashed so he can do that, shirts off.

Riiiight now Tae-hwan feels weird so he will run in place with his back to them.

Shirt can come off and makeouts can happen! (She's a less active participant than before, but she did tell him her backlash makes it harder for her to be proactive, even if she was pretty evasive about the details.)

...she doesn't really have access to her ability to appreciate it, at the moment, but Min Woo-young continues to be a really good kisser.

He does! And it turns out being a good kisser promotes saliva production which means better guiding! Win win.

Yep!

As before, Flywheel gradually becomes a more active participant in the process as time goes on.

After a bit of this though he regretfully pulls away to guide his own partner.

Flywheel can watch if she wants to.

Flywheel is supposed to check in with her agent, so she'll do that, using the grouptext she has with Paula and Traceless both.

Checking in. Backlash is at about a 4 after getting some guiding here.

There was some collateral damage but the worm is very dead halfway through the portal. 

congrats!! same silo is waiting for you at need

I'm with June, ETA another hour. Paula, does triage think getting Flywheel guided to take out another worm is worth putting off my 7pm?

I'll ask. depends if the quasars are available for more too though

The analysts are very happy about this development. Based on what they saw from the worm Tae-hwan fought earlier, Infested Wasteland hasn't seemed able to close portals while worms are still occupying them. With the entire worm dead, it's unclear that it can reuse this portal at all, unless the dungeon does something on the other end?

She lets Flywheel's agent know that getting her guided down to do this again is currently extremely high priority, and messages Seo Tae-hwan and Min Woo-young to confirm that they're capable and willing to do that again. Getting as many portals blocked overnight as they can would be a big deal - they'll be able to finish evacuating the dungeon and then send in the strike teams in the morning.

yes, putting off your 7pm is worth it, I'll put you down as tentative for the same one noon tomorrow and we'll see!

Yeah on Tae-hwan's end this is actually substantially less backlash-heavy than the stunt with the bullet yesterday and he can do this like three or four times before his backlash gets bad enough it would be negligent to keep going.

I think I can do 2 worms from zero. 

Sounds like I should meet Traceless at the silo in an hour?

yup!

See you then!

👍

"I have to meet Traceless at his silo for guiding in an hour, so I should probably get going," she tells Tae-hwan and Woo-young. "See you guys in a few hours, I think?" 

(...she has the weird experience of noticing her brain halfheartedly searching for something to mock her for, giving up, and just calling her a dipshit on general principles. All tired out after a long day of being a horrid bitch, huh?)

"Are you... going to be doing some errand on the way, or..."

"No? It's just..." 

"...far... away..." she says, to the best teleporter the world has ever seen.

 she is so fucking stupid augh augh augh 

"Ah huh."

Tae-hwan covers his mouth to not laugh.

stupid stupid stupid stupid 

"In that case, I'm good to get another worm. Though I will be backlashed enough that you should drop me off at the silo immediately after? I can text you the coordinates now."

"Yeah, sounds good." He pats her hand. "Don't worry, people who don't have me around keep forgetting I exist when I'm around!" he says brightly. "I'm used to it."

See it wasn't even that, she knew he was there, she had just not bothered to think about whether he might consider it worthwhile to teleport her home. (why would she be?)

She's absolutely not saying that and if she can help it she's not giving it away with her emoting, either, but she's not sure she can and that's not really fun to think about.

"Well, as long as you're used to it, I guess it's fine!" she says, brightly.

Yes that's what he meant. But the way to deal with people's hell iPhones is to not give them the time of day. 

"Then let's find another worm to ruin the day of," he says, opening the map again.

She's so scrungled.

....she does a tolerable job of not reacting to them both noticing, at least. 

It takes another twenty minutes for a worm to show up.

This doesn't go very well for the worm.

And then she can be sent to the relevant coordinates, using the system again for aforementioned cheapness reasons.

And there she will wait for Traceless to finish guiding June.

And then... Woo-young will try to figure out how to get in touch with Traceless.

Traceless has a website! It has an email for him as well as his agent's number (and contact information for other people you might be trying to find this way, like Cricket and Ontario Monster Park).

Agent's number, probably.

Hello! This is Min Woo-young, the esper who has been working with Seo Tae-hwan and Flywheel today. Is there a way for me to contact Traceless directly? I saw his email on the website but I don't know how responsive he would be there.

One moment please, checking your bonafides

Traceless here, what's up?

Hello, Traceless! It's a pleasure to meet you.

I believe you're guiding Flywheel, yes?

Only since yesterday.

Yeah, I got that it was recent.

This is probably a strange message to send, but I didn't have many better ideas. I don't want to pry, and if you know you don't need to tell me, but it seems like she might be going through a rough spot and I was wondering how on top of it you were? A cursory search hasn't found contact information for her agent, but from your blog and communication you seem generally like a pretty upstanding guy so I thought I ought to just try asking.

She was operating sans agent. Her late partner was handling that for both of them, which I probably don't have to tell you is weird even for a healer like the partner was and is nuts for a dungeoneer. I'm sharing Paula for now though normally you don't want that for conflict of interest reasons.

Oh.

Uh.

Yikes.

"Yikes," he echoes.

I don't have a great handle on how to find out more on what was going on there while being sensitive about the death.

Yeah, I get you.

She's really not doing great.

I'd probably suggest just being normal and predictable and safe around her?

Idk if giving advice is something I should be doing, I'm basically a stranger to both you and her.

It is nice to have ANY more angles on this at all because I get the sense they were a really isolated dyad

But I'm a fake people person, I just play one on backlash, so I wasn't sure how much I could read into anything

Yeah I remember you mentioned you were an introvert in your self-interview

I'm a people person IRL

I think she's being really really hard on herself about how bad a time she's having and how she thinks she should be over it already and she wants to work a lot to not have to think about it and to have anything in her life she has control over

And I think probably you should just act like she was totally fine and try as hard as you can to not do things that you're doing just because she is having a hard time

She does not seem like she wants people to notice she's suffering

And if you started guiding her yesterday and that's when she lost her partner... she hasn't had any time to process that, I'd guess, and is throwing herself at the dungeon

Well I guess it's really convenient timing if she wants to throw herself at dungeons and do things for practical reasons that don't consult her emotional state

It is I suppose

She should probably take a break and recenter after we kill Arrakis

(We're killing Arrakis, I'm personally bringing half of Korea's espers here if I gotta.)

But I don't know if she'll actually take that break and I don't know if she'll appreciate the suggestion

Many things I don't know

Fortunately taking breaks is best practices even if nobody's dead and you aren't coming out of a year as a poorly agented combat esper!

Yeah

Anyway, uh, normally this is when I'd say something like 'I'll stop bothering you and let you go back to your life' or something but if you are backlashed you might not want this social interaction to end?

It is very normal to have better things to do than talk to me even for people who are not backbones of infrastructure working a confluence and I can cope with that

but certainly if you have anything else to say don't hesitate on my account

I'm currently eyeing a map and waiting for the next worm breach because I think Tae-hwan can kill another one on his own

And then if I guide him until Flywheel is projected to be done with her own guiding they should be both at zero for two more worms

I was also having some unrelated thoughts about rescuing the vics from inside the dungeon itself

If you can improve on me hiking through the sand with somebody riding piggyback on the way out I did more than enough of that in Casablanca

I can definitely do that

In particular if we're both in and you have a camera live streaming your path through the dungeon and maybe some kind of mapping doodad that can track where you are with respect to my location it is very very cheap, backlash-wise, to rescue whoever you're near at any given point

Live streaming cameras are the state of the art for Woo-young backlash-efficiency

Recordings and/or just the tracker doodads can do in a pinch but live streams are where the money's at

My gopro can do that though I'll have to have it in like a few layers of plastic to keep the sand from fucking it up

Yeah that's fine

I just gotta feel in my bones that if I wanted I could get there by walking with my own two feet

The closer I can get to that, the better

Arrakis Walking Simulator coming soon to a live feed near you

Excellent

It's fine if you fly, btw

I'll tell the regional DRT coordinator about this idea, see if they have any reason it sucks or how best to make it happen

"Hyung, you sound like Tae-gun-sunbae."

"Oh, why?"

"Making more work for yourself with zero oversight from the guild."

"Well, I'm here only on snuggling duty, can't blame a guy for wanting to occupy himself."

"Oh, I can occupy you alright."

Flying's expensive but it'd speed things up a lot, whether that's worth it depends substantially on how long it makes sense to have you standing around watching the Arrakis Insert Mobility Method Here Simulator

Depends on how big this iteration got and how many vics

I can do one to two hours of rescues from a normal-sized non-confluence dungeon before I'm totally paralysed from the neck down

latest estimate thinks 80ish in there right now but that'll be in groups of 5-10 each

it's possible Flywheel could just fling me real hard and I could rely on my flight power solely for the landing, if we know the right direction

80ish, oof

I can probably do half of that, maybe more, maybe less, depending on distance and terrain, before needing guiding

("And would that be so terrible?")

Yeah this thing is an asshole and it's a very big asshole

I certainly can't fly to that many people without a guiding break, I can walk to that many without tipping off the worms without backlash being the limiting factor but time and stamina still matter

We'll see what conditions will look like on the ground

It's been long enough since the last worm that I might disappear any minute now because sudden worm so if I stop texting that's why btw