Carol, on the other hand, doesn't have much in the way of guiding needs aside from a place she can get guided and ideally a good reason to not be talking.  Talking never helps anything, when she's backlashed.  She's wearing her armored motorcycle leathers.  It makes her look hot and it keeps her backlash costs down, if she winds up getting stabbed.  And she hates her backlash.  Hopefully it won't be necessary, though.  Honestly, if a car hits her, she's going to have to get an emergency teleport to a silo, and maybe a gag so she doesn't mortally insult whatever pro guide she can scare up.

She's a little bit nonplussed by the huge-ass overengineered wheelchair, but she's had two years' practice at not letting her real emotions touch her face.  "Hey.  Pinion, right?  My name's Sinkhole."  She offers a firm, confident hand to shake.

"That's right. Looking forward to working with you." Pinion, being fresh, has no problem returning a firm, confident handshake! The compatibility is a pleasant surprise.

"Huh! I hadn't expected much compat, but that's not bad." Lower than she'd want for a primary guiding partner, but for a teammate in the field it's a solid perk.

She feels a desperate longing for a moment.  It doesn't show up on her face.  The last two partners she had with this much compatibility had done fine for pro guiding, but they weren't socially compatible with her, as her agent might describe it.  "It's always a nice surprise."  Especially if they put up with me for more than an hour.  She drops her hand back to her hip.  "I'm glad your little ATV there didn't get nabbed by the dungeon.  I'd have to explain how I lost my teammate to a trip around San Diego county."  Her mouth curves, revealing a few pearly teeth on one side.

Pinion's standards are set by 20 years of a primary partner with compatibility at a three-foot distance. She is intellectually aware that she's had it better than most, but the reality is still sinking in.

"Hah, if it had tried to take me for a joyride, I wouldn't have let it get very far. The whole reason I came down was to tell misbehaving vehicles to sit down and shut up." She gives a wry grin. "That being said, without it I'm basically a jellyfish on crutches when my backlash is bad, so here's hoping it doesn't get any ideas."

"I understand.  My own backlash is anger, usually pointed at dungeon monsters.  I'm pretty good about keeping on top of it, but I'm not really annoyed with you, it's just the backlash talking."  Casual, relaxed demeanor.  Is Pinion looking like she's going to be cool about it for now?

"Oof, that sounds rough. I gotta say, I don't love my backlash, but I do not envy people who got psych ones."

The briefing mentioned some tips for how to approach Sinkhole when she's backlashed, which mostly boiled down to "only say anything to her if you absolutely have to". Which works out fine for Pinion, since talking is a pain once her lips and tongue are starting to go slack and her jaw is threatening to pop out. But it does suggest:

"We should probably set up some nonverbal cues we can use for communicating when backlashed. Once I'm at the point where my speech starts slurring, I can't manage any complex dungeon sign either, cause my fingers will just kinda pop out and get stuck in weird positions. So I use modified versions for some common signs." She demonstrates her versions of "no", "go back", "that one", and "guiding" that rely less on specific fingers. Thankfully "stop" and indicating most common directions already use a flat hand, so those didn't need tweaks. "For numbers, instead of holding up individual fingers, I'll bop my hand like this for a count."

Better to establish conventions now than to have frustrating miscommunications later.

Carol feels mildly nauseated at the idea of her fingers just falling half way off like that!  No wonder the woman's in a chair.  "Here, can I get photos of those signs, for reference?  I uh, I don't love my backlash, but.  Yeesh.  Yours is...whooof."  Aaaauuuugggghhhhh.  How does she even run dungeons like that?  I guess mostly she doesn't?

"No problem." She begins going through them again, one at a time. "Honestly, it was a huge pain at first, but I've mostly learned how to deal with it." Well, that and she's used to having in-field guiding just by standing next to her partner, which made the backlash accumulation rate wayyyy less ass. "I know all this seems like a lot, but it's mostly just contingency. An ounce of prevention and all that."

"I'd be a raging hypocrite if I gave anyone a hard time about backlash.  Pun intended.  One last thing before we go catch a car, what's your preferred guiding strategy?"  Externally, she's pretty brazen.  Internally, she's pretty nervous.

Ack. Right, yes, that. "For now I'd rather stick to just skin contact and no fluid exchange, except in case of emergency. The chair actually has a sort of jump-seat that can be folded out", she demonstrates, "which lets someone sit behind me and get their arms around me, or I can pull up alongside you and we can hold hands. Those are probably the main techniques for guiding in the field. On longer breaks, out of my chair, I can do a lot of the usual cuddling type stuff, I just need a lot more fancy pillows. If my backlash gets really bad, I'm not going to be able to move at all on my own, and we should stick to chair guiding until I can again, or just call it for the day. I have a temporary silo rented and a professional guide lined up, so in the most likely scenarios where I'm really in a bad way, you shouldn't need to do more than is needed to get me to a teleport."

"Sounds good to me."  She's a professional, she's not disappointed.  She smiles warmly down at the older esper.  "Do you want to hold hands while we're trying to catch one of these things?  I think we're expecting one in the next few minutes, if they follow the same route they used the last two times."  Well, I won't give up hope just yet.  Maybe I'll meet someone else here.

Yay, that seems like it went okay! Honestly, compatibility with Sinkhole is good enough that the professional guide is feeling a little redundant right now. But she doesn't want to just assume someone she's only just met will want to deal with full guiding responsibility for someone who has to be handled like wet tissue paper when sufficiently backlashed. They can see how well they work together and if it turns out things are going well, she can bring up the idea of expanding the guiding relationship a bit then.

"Sure, holding hands is good!" At least for now, while she isn't too concerned about all the little bones in her hand staying where they're supposed to be. Later on she'll probably want to switch to linking arms or hugging, but the girl's already seeming a bit overwhelmed with all of Pinion's particulars, so let's cross that bridge when we come to it and try to not scare her off entirely right now.

Then Carol will caaarefully rest her hip against the wheelchair and lightly take Pinion's hand in her own.  She doesn't say anything else.  It's nice.

She doesn't get her hopes up, though.  One of the things she's supposed to work on is enjoying the good moments in life where she can.  This one's okay.  But 'okay' is good enough for Carol, today.

It's not long before the high-pitched whine of an electric motor being pushed past its limits by supernatural means is audible.

"I think that's our cue!" She waits until she has visual on the front of the pack, then pins herself to the ground, readying.

She kneels to the ground next to Pinion, gently squeezing the other woman's hand between both of hers.  "Last o-" holyshitthey'refast.

Sinkhole barely has the time to react.  She doesn't lay down a full-strength sticky trap - she's afraid that if she did, the wheels would stop and the rest of the vehicle would keep going.  The vehicle blows straight through the weakest version of her summoned purple sticky goop.  But she conjures more and more goop as the car goes, fast as her neurons will let her.

If she wasn't working at speed of thought, this whole attempt wouldn't even be possible.

The car is going damn fast. She hardly has time to think between when the it comes into view and when it's almost past her. But Sinkhole's slowing it down, and it's still solidly in range. She takes one more fraction of a second to do some unconscious backlash tradeoff calculations - how expensive is another gob of that purple goop, how expensive is another 5mph that she needs to arrest in that much mass. And then -

the car is no longer moving.

???  This isn't fast ???

The car's wheel turn, left and right, in a very confused manner.  The wheels spin.  Rubber squeals and burns against the pavement.

Under the weight of Pinion's power, though, it can't meaningfully move.

A family bursts out of the backseat, a mother and two kids.  The mother clutches the younger one(three, perhaps?) while the older girl staggers out under her own power.

They don't look happy, exactly, but they're no longer trying to break a land speed record and that's something.

Meanwhile, the DRT squad that's been on standby for the past forty minutes zooms in.  Two motorized pallet jacks in the front, two manual ones in the rear.   It's a bit like a gang stealing hubcaps - the wheels come off the car, and the vehicle is towed extremely hastily to a nearby parking lot.

Heck yes first try. She would do a fistpump or a high five but she shouldn't risk her elbow, so instead she turns to Sinkhole and smiles.

"Nice job! That purple stuff made a big difference, without it I would have definitely needed a break between cars but as-is I think I could manage one more before I need a breather. How are you doing?"

Sinkhole feels hardly backlashed at all to Pinion, but calibration is good and asking is free. Er, heck. Asking is usually free. Hopefully this isn't yet the level where asking questions is more annoying than it's worth.

Carol has more options for checking on physical vulnerability backlashes than most people.  She asks her power how to completely destroy the hand in between both of hers, gets a feel for how much effort it would take to crush it between her fingers, and realizes wow, this woman is not kidding about how easy it would be to ruin her utterly.

In real time, she gives the hand a very light squeeze.  "It's where I get my name from, after all.  It's my cheapest power.  I'm, hmm."  She does some mental math, a thoughtful look crossing her face.  "Maybe ten minutes of this away from being zeroed?"  I was willing to burn some backlash to see how easy you were to break, so.  Plenty of headroom on backlash.

Nora remains entirely unaware of Carol's new hands-on understanding of precisely the degree to which she is made of jello on rubberbands.

"Heh. Sounds like I'll definitely be the bottleneck today. After the next one I'm expecting to be basically at my safe cap, but I think we can probably guide me back in an hour or two, rinse, and repeat."

"I think that's a good plan.  I'm happy to guide you, but I think I might duck out if they find someone who can combo with me?  Since you have a local guide?"

"Ah, yeah, definitely. If there's other people lined up that you can team up with to increase our overall throughput here while I'm out of commission, absolutely do that. I'm about as compatible with the guy I found as I am with you, so I'll be okay."

She keeps wanting to find a way to offer to guide Sinkhole if none of those other espers are compatible, but the grief counselor she spoke to kept emphasizing that she should take things slow and not overextend herself. The girl just kinda reminds her of herself at that age, except at that age she had Connor, and. Well. Now is not the time to dwell on that.

"Sounds good.  You want to grab one more, and maybe do more body contact while we get the next one?"  Do not get your hopes up, do not get your hopes up...

"Yeah, let's. More body contact for the next one would be great, I'm going to be wrecked after it. Do you wanna try the jump seat, or just try and smoosh our arms together more, or?"

"I'm okay with the jump seat."  She pauses, a flicker of hesitance crossing her face.  "You're sure you're OK with taking on that much backlash?"

"It'll be close to the top of what I can do safely, but I've got a lot of safeties in place. I'll be okay. All things considered, it's actually a near-ideal situation for using my powers without any actual danger to me." And getting close to her upper limit on backlash and getting guided back down without Connor is going to be an important part of... adjusting, she thinks. It'll probably suck, but once she's done it once she'll never have to do it for the first time again.

"Um. I guess I should say, just in case - I may get a bit emotional, but don't take it personally, and don't feel like you have to deal with it. I'm just going through some stuff right now, and that might not play nice with being backlashed. But that's not your problem, and I'll be okay. I'm still all-in on stopping these cars."

A lump form in Sinkhole's throat.  She swallows, twice.

"It's okay."  Her voice is so, so gentle.  "It won't come up today, I think, but my backlash is - not going to play nicely with that.  I'll try and keep it low, with you."

"Yeah, I'd probably play it differently if our relative backlash rates from this were reversed." She gives her best attempt at a reassuring smile (her facial muscles are a bit slack). "I appreciate it, but also, if you need to nope out, please do. So long as I can get to a teleport to my silo, I'll be fine."

"Yeah, I can't blame you.  Here, I think I should be able to get this unfolded, let me know if I start to get something wrong, here..."  Carol will do her best to get the seat deployed for cuddling.  How hard can it be, anyhow?

It's pretty user-friendly! There's a heavy pin you can pull out which lets you fold/unfold the jump seat, and then lock it back into position after.

Boom!  Easy-peasy.  "D'you mind lifting your shirt a little, so I can touch you?  Or would it be easier for me to do it?"

"If you don't mind, it'd be easier if you did it. Feel free to go up as far as my bra band."

"Of course."  Sinkhole's a Professional, she's not going to be grabbing at anything spicy right away.  Pinion feels little spikes of backlash as Sinkhole checks to see how little force it would take to disassemble Pinion.  These futures are rejected, of course.  But they show Carol what not to do.  Wow.  How did she ever do a dungeon in her life?  She settles in with her fingers gently interlocked over Pinion's navel, and a little popsicle stick clutched in her left hand.  "That okay?"

She's a little confused about the backlash spikes. Maybe she's doing some kind of invisible power use to try and match her better? That's kinda sweet.

"Yeah, that's fine." Sinkhole is honestly being impressively careful with her - she hasn't so much as bumped Nora's elbows in the process of getting her arms snaked around her. Certain other people who've guided her before needed a lot of practice before they could reliably remember that squeezing too tight can dislocate her ribs. Not that she's naming names.

Once they're in position, it's just a waiting game until the rev of redlined engines can be heard again.

For better or for worse, Carol has a lot of practice not smashing things.  And also smashing things, but that's extremely NOT the plan today.

She lives about 1.2 seconds per second, racking up little bits of backlash.  Not enough to get her in trouble or to seriously compromise her.  She just asks her power, over and over again, how to destroy the popsicle stick in her hand.

"Let me know if it gets too much.  And you can hold my hands, too.  If you want to."  And if it won't break you.  I know there are worse backlashes than mine, but I don't see ones this much worse...

More skin contact would be good. If she leaves her elbows on her armrests and rests her hands on top of Sinkhole's, that shouldn't put too much force on anything that'll want to slip out of place the moment she uses her powers again.

"You're doing great so far. If anything starts to hurt, I'll let you know right away." Right now, it's very much the opposite of painful. She missed the feeling. Some things about it may be different from what she's used to, but in some ways, it's just the same.

Sinkhole hums in acknowledgement.  There's a little gap, between the headrest and the backrest of the Sick As Fuck All-Terrain Power Chair.  She leans her head forward, and gently nestles her forehead against the back of Pinion's neck.  She's not putting pressure on it, the headrest prevents that.

She doesn't say anything.  She just plots the destruction of the popsicle stick in her hand and waits for the carnapped cars.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Two cars drift the corner, pursued sharply by a minivan.

Kind of a pain how fast they are, floats through Sinkhole's mind.  She'd really prefer against trapping the minivan, it's heavier - but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

She lays down more purple sticky traps.  More than last time.  Twice as many weaker ones, to give the vehicles a chance to slow down.  Then medium ones, then finally stronger ones.  By the time it gets near-ish to Pinion, it's going around 45 MPH.

Arresting 45MPH in a minivan's worth of mass is going to put her quite near the top of her safe threshold, and she would very much like to continue being able to breathe under her own power. She rapidly assesses how much of the van she can get away with not pinning without putting any passengers at risk. She anchors herself to the earth, and then, before it's too far gone -

- she pins just the steel unibody of the van. Here's hoping everyone in there's buckled in.

She can't really tell, though, because even if the muscles in her eyes that let them focus were still working, the muscles in her eyelids that would keep them open aren't, and neither are the ones in her neck that keep her head up.

Holy shit that's a lot of backlash what is she oh fuck - 

THIS ISN'T FAST

The unibody stops.  The wheels do not.  Thankfully the unibody is mostly invulnerable, thanks to Pinion's power.  The panels aren't part of the steel unibody, and neither are the mirrors.  The rearview mirror continues through the windshield, which shatters.  The airbags go off.  Alarms in the car go off as well.

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?"

Maybe progress?  "That'd be fine by me.  Do you have a blanket or something we can use?"  Down, girl.  She's going through some shit.

"Yeah, there should be one under the seat here somewhere..." She rummages for a moment and pulls out a woven throw blanket and hands it to Sinkhole, then starts wriggling and pulling her pants down towards her knees. Heh. When I was her age, I'd have been mortified to be sitting in my underwear in front of a bunch of DRT guys like this. Feast your eyes, fellas.

With some careful handling, she manages to get her pants below her knees and refasten her knee braces without either of her knees or her shoulders popping out. "Getting these the rest of way off is gonna be a little tricky right now. If they're in the way, probably better for you to do that part, or I can get them in a bit."

"I'll handle it, it's okay.  Backlash is a real bear." Sinkhole is maybe a little pink-cheeked, but she's perfectly competent to help another girl out of her pants.  With a DRT squad twenty feet away.  She'll wriggle Pinion's pants down.  A few more ticks of backlash pile up as she counterfactually checks Pinion's ankles, then she tucks Pinion's feet in.  "Okay.  I'll get back behind you now?"  Hmm.  Should have given her my jacket, that wou-no, Carol.  She probably hasn't gotten a year of therapy in the last ten minutes, she's still going through shit.  Do you have the attention span of a methed-out fruit fly?

Aw, cute. "Thanks, sounds good."

Then Sinkhole will resume her previous position behind Pinion.  Her own pants are rolled up to the knees and rested over Pinion's thighs.  Then she wraps her hands around Pinion's tum.  Maybe a liiiittle higher than before.  "There we go.  Nice and cozy.  Lemme know if you need me to move, okay?"

Pinion rests her hands on Sinkhole's again. "Will do. This feels good to me right now." It dooesss, guiding is so good. God she misses-- nope nope not finishing that thought now. That can be a Later Thought. Right now she is here with Sinkhole, who has been an excellent teammate, and they are going to stop so many cars from terrorizing the passengers and pedestrians of San Diego.

Sinkhole doesn't get as fidgety as some people whom she could name but will not.  But she's not immune to the temptations of the fidget.  She's got her left hand full, but her right hand's fingers entwine with Pinion's, and her thumb grazes over the edge of Pinion's index finger over and over.  "Have you been an esper long?" 

She laughs. "I'm 38, and I awakened when I was 18. I think at this point I've officially lasted longer than The Average Dungeoneering Esper. How about yourself?"

Her thumb freezes for a few seconds, before it resumes its petting motion.  "You, uh, you don't look it."  I guess I shouldn't be surprised, espers age pretty well.  "I figured you were older than me, but - I'm nineteen.  Awakened about two years back, started doing dungeons, and I haven't stopped since."

"Heh, thank you. The years have been kind to me." Well, mostly kind.

Aw, she's a baby. Damn competent for a baby though. 

"You and I followed a pretty similar trajectory, sounds like. I actually wasn't too keen on dungeoneering to start, but I met my partner - Starfist - at basically the first mixer I ever went to, and his power was very much combat-oriented. So I sucked it up and gave it a try. Turns out I'm decent at it, at least with the right supports. Mopping up breaches like this is definitely my strong suit, though. In a dungeon, I'm solid combat support, but my mobility is terrible. Out here, I have home-field advantage."

Sinkhole was keeping track of the Toronto Tragedy for completely professional reasons.  She's aware of what happened.  "Oh."  She pauses for a few moments, and her hands tighten on Pinion, ever so slightly.  "I heard.  I'm sorry."  It feels pretty petty to complain about Tim's power, now.  Even it can't save everyone, much as he tries his best.  Burns himself alive keeping the rest of us warm.

Ugh, the "oh I'm so sorry for your loss" song and dance. She's getting so tired of it. Obviously what else can you say, but. It seems it's the only conversation she ever has, these days. It's her own fault for bringing it up, really.

"Yeah, it's. Been hard." Think of something else to say. Don't just leave her hanging on a downer like that. "He and I were a good team for a long time." That's not really better?? "I could tell you all kinds of crazy stories from when we were your age." Do I actually want to do that? Augh. "But I'm sure you've got some crazy stories of your own!" There! Now shut up!

Okay, that's a change of topic if ever Carol's heard one before.  "One or two.  And since you're my captive audience..."  She trails off, playfully squeezing Pinion just a li'l baby bit.  "So no shit, there I was..."  She begins a (slightly exaggerated for comedic effect) story about how she and a previous partner went through this one catacomb dungeon.  Carol's a reasonable size for her height, but she didn't have any problems with hooked chains hanging from the ceiling.  Her partner on the other hand, kept getting clonked on the skull, hooked by them, and generally inconvenienced.  After the third time he got hooked, he decided that getting shot by a poisoned crossbow trap was more likely to happen if he got hooked.  So he shrugged out of his vest, stripped his shirt off, and promptly been swooned over by this sweet little old lady.

(She needs to get more funny stories.  Since she started running dungeons solo, it's hard to find things that happen in a dungeon amusing.)

Phew. Thank you Sinkhole for taking the bait. Probably I'll want to tell stories, eventually. But... when they come up naturally. Not because I couldn't think of anything else.

The "no shit there I was" story is a noble esper tradition. Pinion makes sure to ooh and ahh and gasp at all the appropriate parts, and the punchline genuinely gets a giggle out of her. Reminds me of that time when Connor... okay, fine, brain, you win.

"Hah, rescuees can get real frisky sometimes. There was this one time when..." She regales Sinkhole with the tale of a dungeon that was mimicking an enormous cruise ship in a storm. Tons of little identical hallways like in a hotel, but rocking side to side crazily like a boat. They were doing a sweep for kidnappees, who were just locked in various cabins, and found one girl who was mega seasick and had spent the time til they got there puking into the ensuite toilet. They got her cleaned up and gave her some water and started escorting her to the portal. On the way out, she took out her phone and started taking a bunch of pictures. She claimed she just wanted photos of the dungeon, but conveniently they all also happened to have Starfist in frame. Especially his arms. And his butt.

"It wasn't even an interesting looking dungeon! Most of it literally just looked like hallway!"

Sinkhole is the model of professionalism and decor when she states, "Oh, no, I'm sure those photos went on the LAC database.  Definitely."  Then she giggles into the back of the headrest, and therefore the back of Pinion's neck.  "I gotta admit, it's a little annoying when they make a pass at me while we're in a dungeon.  I don't mind them looking, but I'd rather save anything more than that for downtime."  

"Right? I understand if they have a little trouble keeping their eyes at 10 and 2 - I mean, I too have seen espers and sometimes it's a struggle! And I get it, when people are in a dungeon they're not generally at their most tactful. But could we please all just keep our mouths respectfully shut? I don't need to hear about how you would treat me if I was your girl. Like seriously dude, I'm just trying to do my job, which is saving your life, by the way."

"Right?  Like, I get it, we're all hot.  But you're in a dungeon!  There are dungeon monsters!  I'm here to kill dungeon monsters, and it's not like a civvie is bulletproof the way I am!  And even if the monsters don't go for civvies, I don't want to split my attention between monsters and whatever an abductee has to say that isn't, you know.  Relevant to getting us both out of the dungeon!  And it's a whole ethics problem, if you hook up with someone you pulled out of a dungeon."

"I have coworkers who wear a bodycam every time they go in a dungeon. Partly so that they can review the footage later, see if there's any areas for improvement. But partly so that if some vic propositions them, gets rejected, and then comes out of the dungeon with a sob story about how the awful esper refused to rescue them unless they performed sexual favors, they won't get blacklisted from dungeoneering for life. It's such a stupid situation." The worst part is there really have been espers who did that. What if we didn't burn the trust people have in us to protect them, hey?

"I just wear mine for the cool videos I get."  She snakes an arm out and lightly draws an X on Pinion's right collarbone.  "Right there, on my vest strap.  I'm not really - specced for rescues.  I do it sometimes, but my customer service gets pretty bad once I get backlashed.  Monsters don't care if I cuss at them, they're the easy part."  Her hand returns to its previous position, maybe a little higher than it had been before.

"Yeah, arguably I should wear one, it's good practice and it's not like it would be hard to mount to the chair. I just don't like the idea of being recorded constantly." ("Arguably" in the sense that she has gotten into arguments about it before, several times. Connor was a big believer in them.) If I had worn one, maybe I would have more videos of him. She sighs. "I can only really do rescues on a team or in dungeons where I can take my chair, and even then, showing up looking like this does not inspire confidence in rescuees that I'm capable of getting them out in one piece. Most of my time in dungeons has been on melee support, crowd control, managing environmental hazards, that kind of thing."

The inching upwards is fine, Pinion's no longer so backlashed that a hand on her ribcage poses a serious threat to her structural integrity.

"Well, you'd be able to carry more than almost any other esper out there.  And this thing looks like it'll go on every surface that isn't literally vertical.  But it's not really all that rare for an esper to be on a timer because of their backlash.  Yours is just - dramatic."  She gives a slightly-nervous chuckle.

The vibes are still a little off, here.  "What do you do for fun apart from invade alien dimensions?"

"If I stick to things that are person-size or smaller, the backlash rate is really so much better, too."

"Outside of dungeons, I like to go backpacking, bouldering... cross-country skiing, in the winter. When I can, I like to help out with the local youth community theater, doing stuff like building sets and props, or showing the kids how to do it. I'm trying to learn to crochet, but I'm pretty shit at it."

"Awwwww."  That's sweet of her.  "Have you graduated past the Scarf Phase of crochet?"

"I've mostly been doing these little crochet animal kits, they're really cute. But they tend to come out pretty lumpy and lopsided when I make them, so far. Should I be worried about the Scarf Phase?"

Sinkhole drops into her best 'shell-shocked survivor' impression.  "It's terrible, Pinion.  You start making a scarf and then you don't know when to end it.  It consumes you.  You're stuck adding just one more foot...forever.  If you're lucky, someone sees the skeins coming out of the windows and calls the fire department to break you free of the curse."

Pinion plays along with the bit. "Oh no... I was lured in by the tiny adorable animals! I never knew I was in such terrible danger... Thank you so much for warning me now, before I fell prey to the siren song of Cozy Scarf!"

"All in a day's work for an esper."  She might ordinarily follow that up with 'ma'am', but she does not want to emphasize the age gap today.  "It's a terrible thing.  First, they start you on cute little animals.  Then once you're hooked, you start craving harder stuff.  Socks.  Scarves.  Sweaters, if you live long enough."

"And to think, not that long ago, I had found myself thinking, 'Oh, granny squares don't look so bad, I bet I could do that'. I could have found myself with an entire blanket! My savior."

She giggles. "So I take it you're into fiber arts?"

"Oh, no.  I kept stabbing myself with the needles and got mad at it.  My sister got big into it, though.  She made her own prom dress and everything, it was actually really stylish.  She swore me to secrecy about it."

"She crocheted an entire prom dress? That's insane! It must have taken forever! I'd ask to see pictures, but I guess I'll just have to use my imagination."

"Hmm, I don't think that one was crochet, actually?  I know she did a sweater in crochet, though.  Dad was mad as hell because he'd okayed the pattern for the dress ahead of time, but he can't actually read patterns worth a damn..."

"It's still impressive if she knit it! More impressive, even, I think knitting's a lot more complicated than crochet." For one thing, you have to juggle two needles at the same time, sometimes more. "Why was he mad, was it really skimpy or something?"

"Well, I didn't think so.  And neither did she.  But he sure did, it was backless.  I think Mom was a little on the fence about it, but she had gotten permission...so she didn't want to set a bad example.  It passed dress code, so that was enough for her."  Okay, she's a little warmed up...let's see if we can get a good segue going.  "I'm glad that time in my life is over."

"My parents are Muslim. Not even especially conservative, but my dad would have had a stroke if I went out in something sleeveless, much less backless. I definitely feel you. Being an adult is so much better." To be fair, I would never have felt comfortable in something sleeveless back then anyway. A few years as a working esper sure changes your views on a lot of things.

"Yeah.  It's a lot different now, what with the job's requirements.  Or, not requirements, but what the job incentivizes."  She swallows her nervousness and pushes on.  "And on the subject of incentives, if you change your mind about fluid exchange, you only have to ask.  No pressure either way, no strings.  Okay?"  And I'll just...move my hands back down a bit closer to her navel.  Make it clear I'm not trying to push boundaries.  I guess I am being a little pushy, but she scared the shit out of me before.  I definitely can't kiss her like she was after that van, but if we take more breaks, maybe..

"I... thanks for the offer. It's not that I don't want to, exactly," I'm straight, but I don't mind kissing girls for guiding. "It's just, it's only been a few weeks, and I'm trying to take baby steps right now. If it turns out that, I don't know, your lips feel just like his did, or they feel too different from how his did, and that's upsetting, then maybe I end up crying for an hour or two, and that's a dozen people who don't get rescued today. This is my first time back out in the field since, and I want it to go well, to prove to myself that it can go well. So. I'm trying to play it safe. Maybe later, once I'm a little more back in the swing of things, it's something we could try. If we're still teamed up then, or if we team up again for some other thing. I'm not really sure how long it's going to take me to feel ready to try it. But I'm not, yet. Sorry."

Of course, if she were guiding more efficiently, she could be saving more people per day, too. Everything's a tradeoff. But guiding works off backlash at a known, predictable rate, and her emotional reactions are really not very predictable, these days. Better to wait and experiment with stuff like the more high-throughput guiding techniques when she has a few hours where spending them being a wreck won't trade off so directly against people's lives.

She smiles, a little.  It's a rejection, but it's not a rejection because of her.  And she's got good reasons for it.  "Hey, it's an offer, not a demand.  You don't owe me any kind of explanation, and you really don't owe me an apology about it.  We're cool, okay?"  She squeezes Pinion in a very calibrated manner, like someone intimately familiar with Pinion's compression tolerances.

How is this girl so good at that? It took Connor months of regular guiding sessions together before he could manage not to squeeze me too hard. And when I've done pickup guiding like this before, they've always done something that hurt, I always had to remind them every few minutes not to do this or that, but somehow we've been guiding for over an hour now and she hasn't hurt me so much as once. It's so unfair that I have to turn her down like this! We could be getting so much more done if only -- if only -- everything is so fucked up!

She's tearing up, but more easily observed from Sinkhole's vantage point will be her breath hitching as she tries to get it under control.

Carol's no stranger to hiding one's emotions.  You can't fib a fibber, as they say.  Pinion can stay hugged, right on the edge of Problems.  She's locked in.  Well, great.  Making a pass at her made her start to sob a little.  And she's probably going to dislocate her everything if she starts sobbing for real.  Great going.  Fantastic start to your...well, not partnership, probably.  She holds Pinion, and doesn't say anything.  Doesn't ask if she's okay, because she isn't.  She does hum a meandering tune.  She can't remember if it's from a song, or if it's maybe two songs mashed together in her brain.

She's so glad she zeroed out before failing to hit on Pinion.

Okay. Okay. Being upset about being upset is not going to make me less upset. We still have some time before I'm going to be low enough for it to make sense to go for another car, anyway. This can just be. Part of the process. It's okay.

She has to redirect herself a few more times as her feelings attempt to add in sadness epicycles about various other unhappy ideas, like "I'm ruining Sinkhole's day" and "I couldn't even make it halfway through a reduced-load workday before breaking down" and "this is so fucking embarrassing what if I am never functional again", but with the exception of a few hiccups she manages to keep herself solidly in the range of "weeping" and not "sobbing".

After somewhere between five and ten minutes, her breathing slowly evens out again. Alright. That wasn't so bad. I even got myself under control before I got all the way zeroed out, so if you think about it, I was really just being efficient.

"Hi. Sorry. Really really not your fault. You've been great. I'm just kindof a mess right now. Um. I'll probably be ready for another car pretty soon?"

"You're okay, hon.  Really, you warned me.  I'm pretty bad at being comforting, anymore."  She's not going to chicken out, she's not going to chicken out.  "We can talk about it, if you want?  Or you could tell me about your bouldering?  I was too busy warning you about crochet to mention, but I do problems* too, sometimes."

*A/N: 'problems' are what bouldering people call 'routes'.  The author is not sure why bouldering people want more problems in their lives, but the author is not here to judge problematic names.

Sinkhole is like half my age and is being way too mature about this. I really would have expected her to go for the "I can just go back to the silo and get out of your hair until I'm ready to work again" option after the first time I did something dismayingly unprofessional.

"Don't worry about it. It's not your job to deal with my emotions. I can talk to my grief counselor, later. It's agency policy for all bereaved espers to be assigned one. I probably wouldn't have gotten one otherwise, but. It genuinely has been useful, so I guess they were right." 

"Bouldering... Uh, so where I live there's this park where the city's set up these big granite rocks specifically for people to climb on, and that's probably where I go the most just because it's really convenient. And then a little ways out of town there's Okotoks Erratic - most people just call it Big Rock, and that's pretty much what it is, it's just this huge rock out in the middle of a field, and that's got some really good problems on it. And if I really want to just get away for a while I drive out to Banff. It's gorgeous there and the Rockies aren't called that for nothing."

Sinkhole nods in acknowledgement that it doesn't have to be a Whole Thing, then remembers that Pinion doesn't actually have a sensory power.  "I moved pretty recently, after - " my longest-lived partnership disintegrated because I got a phobia?  yeah that's not going to fly " - I needed a change-up.  It's been a few months since I used to go, but there was this gym I used to go to just a mile away from home.  I'd jog down, climb to the very tippy top, none of the - fakeness?  No safety gear, just me and my power.  My agent hated it, but if I can't walk off a hundred-foot drop, I'd have no business doing what I do in a dungeon.  Tons of fun."

Her thumb hand goes back to petting Pinion's finger.  It's not much, but it's about the best she can manage without escalation on the Flirtation Ladder or compromising Pinion's physical safety.

"I know exactly what you mean. I don't want to be strapped in and strung up, I want to know it's just me and my own strength. I've done a little free solo climbing, too, and that's just so exhilarating every time, to get to the top and look down and be like I started down there and now I'm all the way up here and that was all just me."

"Besides, I can always catch myself if I fall." Even if I was going at terminal velocity, it just wouldn't represent all that much backlash.

"Exactly!!"  Pinion feels five rapid-fire spikes of backlash before Carol continues.  "You and me, we're like this."  Carol interleaves their fingers and squeezes her hand in her extremely well-calibrated way.  We're both fucked up because of our partners.  No, that's backlash talking.  Christ.

Okay seriously does this girl have some kind of sensor power for detecting precisely -- huh. The mission brief did mention something about Sinkhole having some kind of close-range "sixth sense" for combat... maybe "combat" somehow includes handholding??? Powers are weird.

Since Pinion's nearly zeroed, she squeezes Sinkhole's hand back. "Yeah!!" Her grip is actually surprisingly strong, without the backlash.

Excellent!  I probably didn't need to check, but.  It's cheap enough and we're already cuddling, and if I was gonna traumatize myself this way, it would have happened a long time ago.  Now it's just noise.  "Do you want to stretch a little bit before we do the next one?"  Even if you're immune to bedsores like SOME people I could name but won't, it's still a good habit to be in.  Especially at her age.  ... maybe I wouldn't have made a pass on her if I'd known right away.  Well.  Can't unfuck that one now, and she's not holding a grudge, probably.

"Yeah, I could stand to get my circulation going." She unbuckles herself from the chair, hops down, and runs through a short routine that hits each of the major areas.

If the plan is to just do one at a time from now on, technically I could do without the chair... but let's not push it. She climbs back in, refastens the harness, and waits.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeee.  Looks like a pair of sensible four-door sedans are neck and neck.  They're jockeying lightly for position, neither exactly has a speed advantage over the other.

Such a pain in the ass that we can't do both.  Carol's backlash ticks up a little as sixty feet of increasingly-sticky goop manifests in front of the left-hand vehicle.

I definitely could stop both of them. But that's not what we agreed on, and I would like us to be able to continue working together. Sorry, right-hand car passengers. Maybe we can get you on the next go-around.

She pins herself to the world. Then, she pins the whole car, passengers and all. Then, a split-second later, she lets go of most of it, keeping hold of just the unibody. She'll keep her pin to the world, too, just in case, until DRT calls clear and she drops it all.

Righty blows past the team.  Lefty comes to a very abrupt stop.  The airbags do deploy, but the passengers don't look too banged up, courtesy of Pinion's power.

Operation: Hubcap Heist is successfully executed.  The passengers get walked to safety, the wheels are removed.  "We're clear, Pinion!  Let go, please?"

She lets go.

Sinkhole checks on her coworker.  She feels good, and also her backlash isn't too bad.  "Still alright, Pinion?  Nothing fell out?"  It's annoying how worried I am about this woman I just met a few hours ago.

"Yup! Doing fine. At this level I'd easily roll my ankle if I stepped wrong, but there's an simple fix for that: don't try and walk. So long as I stay supported and don't try any risky movements, there's basically nothing that can go wrong. You doing alright?" Sinkhole feels a bit worse than I'd expect, but I guess she did appear a whole lot of that sticky goop this time.

She's notable more terse than before.  "Yeah, I'm fine.  Not so bad off that I turn into a raging asshole.  I wanted to match you, get the backlash equalized some more."  Since we've gotta wait for you and your man just died and you turn on the waterworks if someone sneezes wrong.  No, you're being an asshole.  Find something else to be annoyed at.  You know what's a pain?  How fucking careful I have to be to not pop her like a sealed bag of chips.

... I'm kind of hungry.  That's annoying too.  "Are you allowed to eat at all right now, or is that a problem if something gets stuck?"

I guess that's the other way to increase guiding efficiency. Oof.

"A notch or two above this and I start to have issues chewing and swallowing, for sure. Right now, I should be alright and, now that you mention it, it seems like a good time to take a food break. I brought some stuff to munch..." She (carefully) reaches under her seat and pulls out an insulated lunchbox. It's mostly got things like jello cups and nutritional shakes in it, but there's also slices of stuffed flatbread and a thermos of some kind of soup. "Did you bring anything? I'm happy to share, but it may not be to your taste. Or we could put in an order or something, I'm not so hungry I can't wait for a delivery drone."

"Just some meal bars.  I always have them."  Stop.  Do NOT be a colossal bitch for no reason.  "Could I maybe try one of those flatbreads?"

Pinion starts in on a shake. "Smart. Go ahead, these ones are herb and these are beef. The beef is a little spicy."

She's got plenty of guiding surface through Pinion's bare legs.  The arms are nice and cozy and it's frustrating that she has to let go, but she's also irritatingly hungry.  So she leans into being annoyed at hungry.  Her hand snakes past Pinion's arms and swipes a beef one.  "Thanks."  God, I hate how my backlash feels.  A little tinge of peevishness leaks into her voice.  "I'm a little backlashed.  Obviously.  Not trying to be an asshole, it just happens.  Don't tell me I'm not."

This is what I get for trying to match her better.  It's obviously the correct thing to do, and it has frustrating consequences, and that's the problem here.  Not Pinion.  She's got a shitty backlash, and it pisses me off because she doesn't deserve it.  And it's not her fault she's fucked up, that's her stupid partner's fault for dyi-no.  Christ.  Go back to the hunger.  She focuses on her stomach's emptiness, the vague sense of having low blood sugar.  How frustrating it is that she can't just have a whole-ass crabcake right in front of her.

(She could, actually, order a whole-ass crabcake via drone or teleport.  But if she did that, she wouldn't be annoyed about the fact that she can't have a whole-ass crabcake, and her frustration would find a less safe target.  She's not consciously thinking about this, because if she did, her brain would notice and the target of her ire would shift.  It's the mental equivalent of wrestling a bear in a tub of KY jelly.)

Wow I have no idea how to handle her backlash. This is pretty embarrassing after she's been so great about mine.

Not thinking of anything to say that clearly needs saying, Pinion settles for making an acknowledging "Mm." around her own mouthful of food.

She occupies herself trying to figure out if she likes the flatbread or not.  She comes at it sideways, asking her frustration if it's frustrated about the texture.  It's not.  Her frustration doesn't object to the flavor.  Her frustration doesn't mind the spice level, either.  She finishes her mental 'Am I enjoying myself?' checklist, and concludes that the balance of probability is that she liked the flatbread.  She takes a few swigs of purple esperade(her least favorite flavor) to wash it down.  She unwraps and finishes one of her meal bars.  Then her arms wrap back around Pinion's midsection.

Around ten minutes of silence later, she clears her throat.  "It was pretty good.  Thank you."

Okay, phew, no disasters there. She finishes her slice and her shake and packs the bag away again.

"You're welcome. Feel free to grab another if you want one later."

She puts her hands over Sinkhole's and settles in. Her backlash feels like it's gone down a bit, but... maybe I'll still wait for her to initiate conversation if she wants it. Just in case.

Two spikes of backlash, then Pinion's fingers are interweaved with Sinkhole's.  It's a few square inches of extra guiding efficiency, and the only enraging thing about guiding is that she's not getting more of it.  But, she tells her internal sense of frustration, that's because of Pinion's bad backlash, not Pinion herself.  Pinion herself is thoughtful, and sweet, and going through a lot and Carol will keep reminding herself of this whenever Carol's Frustration rears its decidedly cranky head.

It's a little while later when she follows up.  "Thanks for not arguing.  Sometimes someone wants to tell me that I'm not a spiraling jerk and I start to argue with them about it."  And by argue, I mean scream so hard my voice hurt the next day.

"No problem. There have been times when I'm in a fight with someone" usually my parents "and another person" usually Connor "says something trying to defend me, but they do it in a way that just pisses me off more, and then I find myself having this whole argument I never wanted to be having, where I'm arguing against my own side in defense of whatever I started out being mad at, and then I end up getting mad about that, and it's just, the dumbest, most frustrating thing in the world. So I was like. I don't know what to say but at least let me try not to do that, you know?"

"Yeah.  It's like that."  Except other people fight for a reason.  I just fight to fight.  One pulse of backlash, then she gives Pinion a Carol McCleery Patented Calibrated Squish.  "It's worse, for me, when there's a reason to be mad at someone.  Harder to steer."  Her backlash pulses twice more, then she leans her head forward again, placing her forehead on the back of Pinion's neck.

I don't know that I would be running dungeons, if I had a backlash like hers. It sounds exhausting.

"That sounds tough." Is it safe to say something nice about her, now? ...Let's not risk it. "What's it like, trying to steer it? Or we can go back to talking about rock climbing, if you'd rather."

"No, it's fine."  It's a dumpster fire.  "It's frustration, anger, irritation.  I'm going to get pissed at something.  I have to - frame my thoughts, point them at something it's safe to be mad about.  Like, I would love a crabcake right now.  I'm annoyed because I don't have one.  I can't have one, because if I did, I'd be annoyed by something else, something that might not be safe to be annoyed about."  And now I'm doing it consciously, which means it's going to be ass.

"What sorts of things are more or less safe to be mad about? Like, I can see how not having a crabcake right now is pretty safe, I'm guessing being annoyed at yourself or someone else is where the problems arise? Do you like, keep a list of harmless things to be mad about?" I wonder if following politics would be overall net-positive, or net-negative...

"People, mostly are the problems.  Well.  Not problems, but, you know.  It's safe to be mad at stupid things things, little things are fine.  Monsters, it doesn't matter if I'm mad or not.  But the other thing, if I - well.  If my brain realizes I'm trying to force it to be mad at something, it's harder?  So I have to find something annoying without meaning to think it's annoying.  Psych backlashes.  You need to be amazing at cognitive dissonance.  I'd win the Olympics if it were a sport."

"Sheeesh. Having to do mental backflips like that just to keep your feelings pointing in the right direction. I do not envy how much work you must put into that in order to stay functional. They oughta give you a medal." I got it easy. All I have to do is lie there like a dead fish.

“Yeah, a medal for being normal.  Despite my backlash.  Carol McCleery: Not A Complete Asshole, 2036.”

Ah shit.

Whoops, I don't think she meant to say that.

"You'd sweep the competition every year."

Okay, cool, thank you, Pinion.  Politely ignoring fuckups is a fantastic skill to have.  Love it.  "They'd have to test me for performance-enhancing drugs."