But the inhabitants are okay.  Mostly okay.  After a stunned couple of seconds, the family inside manages to stagger out, even as DRT operatives rush the vehicle.  They pallet-jack the vehicle - thanks to Pinion's precision, they don't even have to strip the tires this time.  "Clear to drop it, Pinion!"

She might not be able to see, but can hear just fine, even with this level of backlash. She drops her pins and waits for Sinkhole's guiding to bring her body back to her.

Sinkhole, meanwhile, is actually really fucking worried?  "Hey.  I know you said no fluid guiding except for emergency.  Is this an emergency?"  She can't even talk - shit.  "Uh, make one noise for yes, two noises for no?  Zero noises and I hit the panic button?"

Ah. Damn. Sinkhole is right, they should have clarified that ahead of time. This is a little worse than she was expecting, but not by much. Unfortunately, the vocal cords are muscle, and those are not really cooperating the most for Pinion right now. At the same time, someone untrained trying to move her head right now is really really not a good idea. She lets out a kind of whispery gurgle, interspersed across short, shallow breaths. Maybe that can count as "two" "noises".

Okay, this feels pretty bad?  Gah.  Maybe we should have tied our forearms together or something...was that two noises?  "Uh, I'm - I think that was two noises, maybe?  Do it one more time to confirm?"  Christ.  Michael, please help me make the right decision for this woman.  Amen.

Pinion, with effort, repeats the performance. The guiding is already making a difference - the sound is a bit easier to produce, this time.

While all of this is going down, the DRT is pulling duty as a street-sweeping squad.  The carnapped vehicles might have supernatural agility and traction, but they would really rather not risk any of the civilians.  Or anything nearby.  Gasoline burns and is a real problem, but lithium fires are borderline evil.  And of course, these things travel in packs.  One car spins out, and it's over for the rest of the convoy.

"Okay.  You scared me a little.  I'm going to build up a little backlash, try and bring you down faster.  You're good to go, you don't have to do anything, okay?"  Her backlash spikes pretty sharply, then tapers off.  She's aiming for about a 3 out of 10 on her personal scale, where she has intrusive thoughts but masking isn't too difficult.

(She also loses access to some of her emotional spectrum, but she doesn't want the ability to feel empathy right now.  It's scary.)

Sorry about that, Sinkhole. I'll have to apologize for real once I can speak.

She's actually feeling a lot better than she expected, emotionally speaking. Sinkhole freaking out has been a really good distraction from anything else she might have been thinking about. Now keep it together for the rest of it or you'll probably give the poor girl a heart attack.

She's really annoyed by how much this woman worried her.  It's kind of a pain.  Thankfully, she doesn't have anything else to do except wait patiently for the backlash to go down.

Surely it won't take that long to get Pinion at least capable of expressing herself and, like.  Using her words, so she can push a little bit for a higher-throughput guiding plan.

...right?

They're gonna be like this for a few.




The guiding is nice. Pinion appreciates it. And instead of spending the time moping, she spends it mentally composing what she'll say once she can speak. 




After maybe ten or fifteen minutes, she's able to not only vocalize but also move her lips and tongue a bit.

"Mmmshorry. Arreglr crr woulda pt me't lvl whrr I'c'd stll tlk. Dnn think'bt'a van. An I shlda said... f'I'cn breathe m'oky. Nomrgcny."

The slurred speech throws her for a loop.  She takes a few moments, mentally replaying the message.  I guess you need muscle control to talk, huh.  Talk about a thorn in my side.  "It's okay.  You're fine, hon.  I saw your neck slump and I was worried about that, spinal injury or something.  Glad you're alright."  Fucking Delgado would have been able to tell there wasn't anything wrong.

Isn't Sinkhole supposed to have an anger backlash? This girl is so sweet. Pinion's the veteran here and that really was a screwup on her part. She can explain about how the cervical collar works later, if Sinkhole seems interested. She's right that without it Pinion could give herself a spinal injury.

"Moky. Glad'yr here. Helps."

Well, she's not about to get close to losing her shit on Pinion!  She'd rather go chronic than start screaming at someone guiding her again.  Even when she doesn't care about other people anymore, if you scream at your guide you'll wind up with your backlash going chronic because you lose your guide permanently.

"Okay.  We can talk about it when you're not backlashed."  Not the first time I've said that.  Fucking backlash, I swear to God.

"Mm." She focuses on the guiding. Sinkhole smells different from Connor. Her hands are smaller. Her voice is higher, and she has an accent from somewhere in America that Nora can't place. Nora can't feel the relief before she touches her. But where they touch, it feels amazing. Like life and strength flowing back into her. Guiding is never going to be like it was, but she can still have this.

Nothing to do but wait.  She rests her head on the back of the headrest again.  And she waits.  It's still going pretty well, considering.  And when things are going pretty well, you don't rock the boat.

Over the next half hour or so, Pinion's breathing becomes slower and deeper, and her posture less limp.

"Hey. I've still got a ways to go, but I'm back where I can at least talk normally now. If you want."

"Yeah, sounds good."  She stops systematically plotting the destruction of her emotional backlash support popsicle stick.  No point going through a potentially-intense conversation with more load than she needs.  "What happened?  It was just bigger than a normal car and the backlash snuck up on us?"  Don't phrase it as 'you', that sounds more accusatory.  It's a pain in the ass trying to manage all these other people's feelings, but it's what I have to live with forever.

"Hmm, yeah. Partially that. A regular car would have given me a solid chunk of backlash, but it wouldn't have landed me quite so close to my max. Another part is, I had originally been planning on only doing one car between guiding breaks, but your purple goop is so good at slowing them down that it gives me like a half-off discount. I got a bit over-eager and thought I could get two for the price of one."

"And also, I had always been expecting I'd end up on the high end of backlash here. That just now was more than I planned for, but not that much more, and still in a zone I know is safe for me and I'm comfortable with. But I'm used to it, and used to working with a teammate who's very familiar with my backlash, and failed to account for how... startling it can be, for people who aren't used to it." I tried to warn you I'd be wrecked after a second one, but. "Really sorry about that. If you want to keep going, we can just do shorter, more frequent guiding sessions, and I'll never get up that high."

"I think that might be better, as long as the overall frequency of car-grabbing doesn't go down too much?  And it's okay, you did warn me.  It's just - knowing and seeing are different, sometimes."  Probably for the best, if the frequency is the same but she doesn't scare me shitless...I'll probably have to team up with someone else towards the end, but I can always come back to her later.  I've got a while left in me, my body still thinks I'm in another time zone.

"Yeah, makes total sense. The frequency of car-grabbing should stay about the same overall, I think. And it'll be less rough on the passengers, too, if I can stop each vehicle more thoroughly without cutting into my margins. Hopefully the forensics guys are grateful for the starting bonus."

Right now, her backlash level is just a bit higher than it was after the first car. She checks the time and thinks for a moment. "We can go again once I'm closer to zero, and then... I'm good to keep going until 10 or 11, local time. I'm gonna need to crash after that, so I'll go back to the silo then. ...If you're comfortable with it, I'd like to try and do another two-for-one special right before I go, though."

Sinkhole nods along with Pinion, not that Pinion can tell from in front of her.  "Yeah, we can do another two-for-one as long as we plan for it.  I didn't want to be - moving at all, really, while you were, uh.  Backlashed.  But maybe I could wrap my legs around you from back here, if you don't think that would be a problem?"  Let's get her comfy with more contact, then see if she's loosened up for something else after that.

"That's a good instinct: when I'm backlashed the braces are about the only thing keeping all my joints in place, and moving me can easily dislocate something. If you think your legs can reach me comfortably, we can try it. My only concern would be it might end up putting too much pressure on my knees or hips." A hip dislocation's not gonna kill me or paralyze me, but it still hurts like hell. "We can experiment a little now, and I'll tell you if it feels like something is subluxing."

"I'm double-jointed now, I should be able to figure something out.  I'll let go of you, get my feet in, then reach back in?"  She rolls up her biker pants to the knee, then considers for a moment.  She strips out her boots and socks, then pulls a wet wipe out of her vest and cleans her feet off.  Then she wraps her thighs around the backrest, settling her vanilla-scented feet below Pinion's belly-button.  "Better now?  Too much pressure?"

Don't go popping your joints out of place just to make sure mine stay in. "Your heels are pressing into my belly a little bit. Not a huge problem, but not the most comfy. I wonder if I got my pants off, if you could scoot forward and rest your legs on either side of mine?"