As she's standing at side of the road, she catches just-barely-a-glimpse of a woman sitting in the backseat of a carjacked OTTO! who is doing her level best to breastfeed her baby.  Parry's newfound 20/10 espervision is enough to determine that they are extremely not having a good time right now.  The baby looks like they're trying to cry while being out of tears.

The mother just looks exhausted.

Not her problem.

Not her problem.  Not her problem not her kid not her responsibility just because she made eye contact, lady probably didn't even see her, she has a kid brother at home, she can't -

Sometimes Parry hates being Parry.

She drops her groceries on the ground and takes off.

........holy shit.  She can go fast.

She can indeed go fast.  If Parry's attempting to keep pace with this OTTO! and also her power has a speedometer, it'll reveal that she's casually capable of zooming off at 70-90mph.

If she doesn't have a speedometer and is attempting to keep pace with this OTTO! then she'll merely have the experience of going Extremely Fucking Fast.

Her power does not have a speedometer.

Holy shit.  This is incredible.  Okay.

Can she increase her speed to catch up - only in fits and starts? okay.  She jerks into her next gear and starts gaining.  Does the car know she's chasing it, is it gonna try to get away from her, or can she just glide right up to the rear door and wave hello?

Well, it's not trying to avoid her per se.  It's jerking over the road, though, avoiding potholes and rubble and cracks - it's drifting around a corner, and it's going right around a corner, the mirror missed the streetlamp by about a quarter-inch and it takes off like a rocket.  It goes from about 30mph drifting to well over ninety in four seconds.

(The baby wails as the mother tries to keep her precious cargo from going flying across the compartment of the OTTO! again.  She's got a system down by now.)

She doesn't need to drift, she can steer like a hummingbird, and her reflexes are good - but she hasn't practiced.  She almost overshoots the turn, she spins over herself through the air as she darts to the left to stay on the car's tail.  But even Tokyo Drifting, it had to slow down, and she didn't.  She's catching up.

- shit.  Her plan had been to fly parallel with the car and just pick up the kid and the mom and fly them away, but she doesn't know if she can speed up and slow down in a way that'd be safe for anyone she's carrying.  She might need another idea, and she doesn't have one.

Well, the mother's formerly exhausted and borderline-broken expression has turned to hope.  She sees an esper!  Espers save people, and her kid really needs saving.

(She also needs saving, but - that's not much of a concern right now.)

She's going to cooperate with the flying(!) esper.  Li'l Joan is going to get very quickly and very carefully strapped into her carseat again.  She's got a set of emergency straps she can use to hold Joan in, it's probably not great but neither is anything else in this fucking situation and if she does nothing, Joan is going to die.

She slaps the emergency overrides and kicks the door open.

... the door slams back closed, because of the wind.  Okay.  How do you break an OTTO! door off while in a moving vehicle?  She's not sure, but maybe the flying(!) esper(!) will have something?

Okay.

...do they need to break the door off or just hold it open against the wind - is this a job for esper strength - 

- she darts toward the car and clonks into the side a little and tries to make it look intentional and pulls the door open with one hand and doesn't let go, and snakes her other hand through the gap to press it against the inside of the door, and notches up her speed a little so its her power as well as her muscles applying force to the door to open it and keep it open against the wind - 

Her strength is not sufficient to the task.  But her power can do it, easy as walking.

The exhausted-looking woman in the back is getting ready to unhook the carseat.  "Thank you so much, this is Joan, I've got her if-lost-call card tucked into the back of carseat.  It's in the back, black pocket.  My name's Georgia, Georgia Flores, her father's name is Carlos.  Please take care of her for me, she's my only baby girl..."

How's she gonna - 

- she curls up in midair and sort of rolls over herself to get into a position where it's her feet, not her hands, holding open the door.  "I got her but I need your phone - "

Parry gets a look of staggering disbelief, then resignation.  She tucks it into the baby carrier.  "Password's 356737, it spells out 'Flores', like our last name." 

Aaaaaa my baby, my poor baby...god I hope Carlos finds her...

Joan is unsurprisingly crying about this entire misadventure.

God this is stupid, this is so stupid, this is so fucking stupid even by her standards, she should've stayed out of it.  Okay, carseat held against her chest with her back against the wind.  "I'm coming back for you," she yells.  "Away from the door."  And when Georgia complies, she drifts aside and allows the door to slam shut.

She unlocks the phone and snaps a picture of the car, from just outside, and of herself holding the carseat, and texts them to the DRT emergency hotline with the message EAST ON MARKET ST HEADING FOR TOYNE DRT PICKUP NOW

"Hey, Charles, who the fuck is this esper?  You recognize 'em?"

"Hmmm."  Charles has won eight of the last nineteen Departmental Esper Recognition contests.  It's a great way to boost morale and the prizes are pretty okay.  "Never heard of them.  She new or something?"

"Guess so.  Doesn't she have an agent, this is supposed to be for the public."

Pickup en route, ETA 7 minutes.

Seven minutes.  Does she have seven minutes of road left?  She sure hopes so.  If she hummingbirds to a stop will this baby die of whiplash?  If she decelerates in a series of tiny jerks can she buy some time without hurting the kid?  Is there any esper on the planet stupider than she is?  She cranes her neck to look behind her and make sure she's not going to fly straight into anything at fuck hundred and seventy miles per hour.

Hey there's a PEDESTRIAN XING sign right there -

Fuck - 

- she darts to the left, just barely jamming her reflex to stop dead in midair - 

- no why'd she go left, she should - 

- she sets herseft drifting up, away from the road, still racing over it at fuck hundred and seventy miles per hour but getting clear of any cars and any street signs, without accelerating fast enough to hurt the kid -

- she's getting the hang of this - but if Georgia can see her she probably deservedly wants Parry's ass kicked - 

Georgia is deliberately not looking.  Instead, she's got her seatbelt on once more and she's curled up in a miserable lump without even the ability to doomscroll anymore.

Joan, on the other hand, is giving off a godawful dopplered wailing.  Infant throats can get hoarse eventually, but this one isn't quite there yet.

If Parry's looking at the phone, it'll reveal that she has another six minutes to go before the DRT pickup will be there.  How does she plan on spending the next six minutes of her life?

She's high enough that she's not gonna run into anything, right?  Maybe she'll just fly along and reflect on what an incredibly stupid series of decisions she made to wind up here.  Maybe she'll try that gradual tiny decelerations thing.  She slows down minutely, once, again, small enough changes that hopefully baby Joan won't notice them.

Baby Joan doesn't really change much of her behavior, Parry's able to decelerate down to about 40 MPH over the course of the next six minutes.  And hey!  That's a marked DRT pickup truck, right there.  It's not quite at the marked intersection yet, but it's not all that far off, either.

Oh fuck it's not gonna park at the intersection is it, she needs it to match her speed - she waves at it energetically and makes exaggerated "come-along" gestures as she rockets through the air - 

The fuck?  Does she need them to keep going somewhere?  Yeah, okay, sure, they can - follow Parry?  They match her speed, because they don't want to run into her or to lose her.

All right, perfect.  Take it down slow, try to come down on top of the bed of the pickup truck.  Anyone there to take the car seat from her?  Or does she have to try to negotiate it into the backseat.  Or just set it down in the empty bed.

After some incredulous staring and gesticulating from the DRT ops in the truck's cab, one of them climbs out the back window, into the bed of the truck.  The rest of the conversation is shouted.

"Here, lemme get that for you!"  He reaches for the carseat, with BOTH HANDS.

Yes!  Good!  She'd love for someone to be holding onto this thing with both hands!  Here you go!

"The mom's still in the car!" she yells back.  "How fast can you drive this thing?"

"Uh, eighty on a freeway, this ain't a freeway!  Sixty?  Can't you you just land?"  Indeed, the vehicle is jostled a bit by damaged roadways.  The mechanics will be making some pretty good-sized boat payments after this incident.

Can she turn off her flight without actually slowing down so she just drops into the back of the truck - yes - 

"Her car's getting away, I don't want to lose her, and if I pick her up and stop in midair I'd give her whiplash - these dungeon cars are doing a lot more than sixty - "

Fucking espers, fucking no failsafes...  "This is what we got - can you grab her and circle back to us?  We'll take it on a straightaway, get as fast as possible?"  Before the mom gets away from us.

Can she circle back around, she doesn't think she can bank properly but by degrees maybe - "I'm on it."  She takes off.

A riddle, if you will.  What beats the ability to break the land speed record and corner like a death-indifferent savant in the zone?

The ability to fly like a death-indifferent savant in the zone.  It's not exactly difficult to catch up to a very familiar OTTO! with a dinged-up rear door.

Beautiful.  Does Georgia see her coming?

Georgia does not.  She's currently curled up in the backseat and trying to forget about the fact that she exists.

It's not going very well for her.

She knocks on the window.

Georgia startles!  She doesn’t jump a foot in the air, but that’s mostly down to the seatbelt.  When she sees Parry, she quickly unbuckles and rolls down the window.

Oh right, rolling down windows.  "I can take you to the DRT pickup with your kid," she calls, over the wind.  "Can you climb out through the window or do you need the door open?"

Yeah, they should have started with that.  "I can climb out, the child seat just wouldn't fit.  I'm ready when you are."  And by ready I mean I think I'm about to literally pee myself.

"All right - " she holds out her hands.

Georgia is actually going to tremble like a leaf for a few seconds.  She's climbing out of her car going god only knows how fast.  Well, God and the speedometer.  But she's refusing to even acknowledge the existence of the speedometer because ignorance is bliss.

But she reminds herself that she is not going to let Joan get lost in some Godawful system if it kills her.  And that thought is enough to get her out of the vehicle at a cool ninety-eight point seven miles per hour, into the arms of a complete and total stranger.

"Gotcha," she says.  Support her with one arm, press her head into the crook of the neck with the other to hopefully make the whiplash not as bad.  "Wrap your arms and legs around me, tight as you can."

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

She does it, with enough strength to bruise.

Yeah that's about how she feels!

Okay.  If she just cuts her speed in half god knows what's gonna happen to Georgia - she can't do a literal circle but she can trace out a many-sided shallow-angled polygon - support her neck - does she have enough clearance to turn around and fly the other way down the road - maybe, but she's never done this before and she's being very conservative with turns, if there's a less stupid way to turn while carrying somebody she doesn't know it - 

- she already made one turn, catching up to the car, might as well just follow the road back around and merge back onto Market.  Up high above the traffic so she doesn't RUN INTO ANY FUCKING STREET SIGNS.  She knows San Diego streets.  She can do this.

"I gotcha," she says.

Well, the DRT truck is at the promised meetup spot.  It's cruising around at 30 MPH, but they have the former DRT passenger riding in the back of the pickup.  He's tied off to a piece of equipment in the back, which isn't completely unlike a seatbelt.  When he sees Parry coming, he bangs twice on the back of the windshield, and the truck revs up and takes off.

If she could read the narration she would say something like, do you really think noted shiftless delinquent dyke Parry Thompson is going to blink at someone sitting in the bed of a pickup truck without a seatbelt, but merely seeing a guy strapped in like so is not sufficient to inspire her to start insulting herself in her internal monologue.  She alights not particularly gently in the bed of the pickup with Georgia and the DRT goon.  "Just these two, car's empty."  Her backlash is pretty much sated by being in the back of a pickup; she keeps her eyes on the scenery racing by.

Georgia is, unless physically restrained, going to half-dive half-crawl into the front of the pickup, which in turn is going to make for a parking lot a few miles down the road.

"Ma'am, I don't recognize you and couldn't find you in Racehorse.  What name do you work under?"

Uuuuuuugh.

"Nitro," she says, out of thin air.  "I'm new, I'm not in anything.  And I gotta get home now that she's rescued."

...

"Do you...have...a partner...?"

"............................no."

"So, uh.  You said you have to get home, and that's - fine.  Do you maybe want to come with us, to the esper silo, see if you can find someone to guide that off?  Maybe we can pick up your family first, they can get in if you claim them as support staff..?"

Why is this guy acting like he's scared of her.  She regards him very suspiciously, and doesn't say anything.

But she doesn't take off either.

He's not scared of her, he doesn't want her to take off and have a backlash aneurysm!  Now that he can see her, he can tell she's just a scared kid looking tough.  "Where should we go?  D'you have the address..?"

"Yes I have the address," she snaps without thinking.

...she sniffs and raises her chin and says, sullenly, "I'm not taking my parents anywhere so you might as well just drop me off at home."

Hmm.  Hmmmm.  "Well, how about this: we'll drop you off at home.  Then, a half hour later, we'll make a pass by that way.  Standard patrol.  If there's an esper with support staff in need of a lift to the silo, we'd be obligated to assist.  Does that sound okay?"

Does this guy, like, know what's up.  Sometimes people do at least a little bit.  She wonders whether it'd be worse to spring a twelve year old kid on these clowns in half an hour or just blurt out does support staff include my kid brother now.  Or just tell them to go fuck themselves and figure it out on her own.

"I left some groceries on the sidewalk when I took off after the car," she says cautiously.

"D'you know where?  They winnowed down the number of cars a bit, but it's not super safe.  We might be able to grab them?  But they raided a whole-ass Shop-mart for the esper silo.  Stuff was going to go to waste there anyway, the power went out and the store didn't have a generator."

(Swearing is a deliberate choice, here - it's not maximally professional but conspicuously Not Swearing makes it look like he's treating her like a little kid.  And it's a cheap way to show your passion for a subject, or make it seem like you're passionate.)

"Just drop me off at home and make it, like, ten minutes," she says, and names the address.  "And you know what, gimme your phone number and tell me where this esper base is."

He's going to do one better: he asks Georgia to take ten seconds away from her baby to get him the post-it notes from the trunk.  He has a carpenter's pen in hand and carefully writes both of them down for her.  "That's my personal number, okay?"  Give her a show of trust, hope real hard she's going to return it.

(When Georgia hands over the post-its, Parry waylays her for a second to hand her back her phone.)

She takes the post-it, and looks at it for a moment, and then, without looking up, says "thanks," quietly.

She doesn't trust this guy exactly but he hasn't shown an egregious determination to be a total slimeball yet, which isn't nothing.

"Thank you.  I know I wasn't looking forward to trying to recover this one without esper support.  You hungry or anything, need a water?  Snack bar?"

The truck begins making its way to Parry's place, occasionally tucking away into a side street or a driveway or a parking lot to avoid carnapped vehicles.

(Georgia is very glad to have her phone back.  She's also going to change her lock code.  She trusts Parry with her life and Joan's life, but changing a lock code is cheap.)

"...I'll take some water, yeah."

One of the perks of riding illegally in the backseat of a moving pickup is that you've got the ice cooler right there.  He hands her a water, then grabs one for himself.  It's cool and refreshing.  He relaxes a little, but not into Parry's space, not even a little.  With almost any other esper, he'd debrief her.  With Nitro, he's just going to chill.

"Hey kid, change of plans."

"Oh?"

"So uh.  You know how I got a bit of a hero complex."

"...what did you do."

"I pulled a lady out of one of those out-of-control cars - "

"Oh my god."

" - and some DRT goons wanna put us up in some kinda esper HQ thing and find me someone to do - uh, esper recovery stuff with."

"I'm twelve, Parry, I know what espers do.  Us?  Does he know about me?"

"I think this guy's got, like, half a clue, he's picking us up in ten minutes and he didn't make noises about not bringing our parents or anything.  He said something about saying you're my support staff - "

"Uh-huh."

" - but like wink-wink nudge-nuge, you know.  And if and when it goes to shit we bail, we can still do plan A."

He sighs theatrically, but he's grinning.  "O-kayyy, let's go meet this guy."

The two DRT guys and Georgia have a hurried conversation.  They have the radio up and are talking in an undertone, which should protect against eavesperdropping.

"Look, she doesn't wanna deal with her parents, but it sounds like it's pretty bad there for whatever reason.  And the hotel's like, better on every metric than this...place."  This shithole.

"That girl saved my life.  Mine and Joan's.  If she asked me for a murder alibi, I'd give it to her.  The least you can do is just help the poor girl!"  She looks so young, and so scared.

"Okay, okay, fine.  I don't - there's a right way to do this, and this isn't the right way.  But they can sort this shit out once things settle down a bit.  Should only be a few days, right?"

"Right, exactly.  We're not doing a crime, we're just making sure the kid's got a safe spot.  Her and her support staff."

"Support staff.  Right.  Sure."

The truck's passing by ten minutes later.

She's out front, pacing up and down the sidewalk.

He's out front too, standing still and watching the truck as it approaches.

Truckbed guy waves from, unsurprisingly, the truck bed.  "Evening, ma'am.  Do you happen to be an esper?"

Oh they're for real doing it that way, okay.  "Yeah," she says, "and you'll never believe it, but this twelve year old kid is on my support staff."

She's heading back in Lucky and truckbedguy's direction.  If no one stops her, she'll hop up on the rear bumper without breaking her gait, and then clamber into the truck bed, and then step back and forth from foot to foot biting her knuckle until Lucky gets in too and the truck starts moving.

He shoots her a mischievous grin, like they're sharing a secret.  Because they are.  And absolutely nobody is standing in her way.  "Understandable, ma'am.  Hop on in, we can take you someplace you can meet someone.  You too, sir.  No buckles back here, but we've got straps so you don't, uh.  Go flying."  His secret-sharing grin turns a little rueful, like he realizes how silly his turn of phrase is.

"Call me Lucky," he says, and straps in.  "So where are we headed?"

"Rented out a hotel with a huge battery bank and a bunch'a solar panels a few miles down the road.  Espers and their support staff are welcome.  Food's pretty decent, there."

"Sooo what are people gonna do about me?" he asks, the archness of his tone only slightly undercut by the way he's kicking his legs.  "You know I'm not really on her support staff, right.  And be-lieve me, now that she's an esper we're out of here in a flash if you try to send me back to our parents."

"Espers can define almost anyone they want as support staff.  I guess we'd draw the line at a support tiger or something.  Probably.  If she says you're support staff, you're support staff."

"Huh.  Thank gosh for legal loopholes?"  Is this the kind of grownup who's gonna lose his shit if Lucky says "thank god."  Anyway this sounds waaaay too good to be true but he's gonna shut up about it for now he thinks.

"No loopholes here, it's a straight reading.  I could cite the case law if you want, I had to memorize that for my exam.  Still dream about it sometimes."

"So I just walk in there and say that I'm Nitro and this kid is my personal assistant?  Totally straight face."  She still sounds a little skeptical.  Maybe real espers can get away with that shit, but Parry Thompson's not a real one of anything.  Not anything that lets you get away with stuff, anyway.

"To be fair, I could prob-ably be your personal assistant."

"Not 'till your sixteen, kid."

"Gotta - " do not say get poked "- uh, get a high-five, prove you're an esper.  But yeah."

"Mhm.  And what do you recommend I do if people call me on this."

"... reference Puddlejumper versus State of Utah?  I mean, you can't bring Lucky in a dungeon, obviously, but this is a hotel, not a dungeon.  Unless we've had a third dungeon break in the last ten minutes.  Uh.  A fourth, I mean."

"I am not taking Lucky into a dungeon," she says, sharply, shields up again.

Okay he doesn't blame her for saying it like that but... she didn't have to say it like that.

"Straightforward enough, then.  Puddlejumper versus Utah, you should be good to go."

"......what's Puddlejumper versus Utah."

He has a mildly harrowed look on his face when she asks.  "It was a case in which an esper who had guardianship over her younger cousin successfully sued for the right to have said cousin permitted inside DRT-provided lodgings.  There was a whole kerfluffle about it..."  He's going to dredge up memories flavored by the recollection of Red Bull and poor decisionmaking skills.

Oh, she hates this.  Like this is probably good news if she's following it correctly but she hates it!  She haaaaates it!

"Parry doesn't have guardianship of me," Lucky says matter-of-factly.

Will you just shut the fuck up and work with me here - 

"Well, I don't know where your parents are and I imagine that you don't, either.  Otherwise you'd be with them right now.  Right?"  HINT FUCKING HINT, KID.  There may be some eyebrow waggling involved.

He's really glad that Sanchez is in the cab and not out here, he'd like to only borderline-incriminate himself if that's possible.

...he and/or Parry slightly overestimated how out on a limb this guy is willing to go.  Okay.  "Got it."

He unstraps himself from the impromptu seatbelt and moves to sit next to Parry and straps himself in again.

Yeah, okay, fine, Parry fucks everything up again because she's too stupid to play the fucking game, sure.  Typical.  She looks at the floor.

"And if you don't have guardianship and want it, that's one of the things an agent would be able to look at.  I don't know anything about your situation, but if you don't have an agent, you really want to get one.  Every esper needs one."

She nods without making eye contact.

"That's good to know," he says mildly.

"Yup.  They're pretty good at handling legal messes."  Aaaaaand she seems a little overwhelmed.  He wants to tell her everything's gonna be okay but she actually looks a little overwhelmed?  He's just going to visibly relax.  Take a sip of water.

So if they get an agent who's Actually Cool that's the person they can just be straightforward with?  It seems like?  Okay.

He kicks his legs sadly.

"...know any good agents," she says, not optimistically.

"Well, there's a bunch of espers where we're headed, probably one of 'em does.  I uh, I'm not an esper, I just work with 'em.  But you want someone you can work with, someone who understands what you actually want.  You don't want to be playing weasel words with them.  You maybe want one who's a lawyer, for attorney-client privilege.  I'm not asking about your backlash, but you want someone who's gonna get whatever your backlash is and be able to work with you even when you're miserably backlashed.  And you don't want to have an agent who's the agent of someone you're partnered with, it's not technically illegal or anything.  But it's a baaaad idea."

"Why's that a bad idea?" he asks, levelly and not skeptically.

"Well, an agent is supposed to look out for the client above all, right?  If you and your partner have a legal problem, the agent is supposed to figure it out for you, not try to split the baby."

He thinks about this.

"So," he says, "an agent is supposed to be, like... cool.  And then if some" shit "thing goes down with you and your partner, they both need somebody who's gonna be cool for them, 'cuz you can't be cool for two people who aren't cool for each other?"

He looks up at Parry.

No it's cool she loves drowning in tar.

Ugh.

"...so an agent's kinda like your defense lawyer," she says.  "If you get into shit, except for the way that just existing is kinda getting into shit."

"Right, exactly.  Or maybe someone in my job screws up and the agent handles it, or a civvy does something stupid and gets hurt, the agent is the one who hires your actual defence lawyer.  They also handle how much you get paid and how you get paid, too.  You want to make sure you're getting good money for the shit you gotta put up with."

She nods.  "I guess that makes sense."

......but then she needs an agent to know how to safely navigate this esper hotel bullshit, but she can't get an agent until she navigates this esper hotel bullshit.

...that is maybe all the Understanding Bureaucratic Bullshit they are up for on this car ride?

He looks at the DRT guy.  "Yeah.  ...what's your name?"

Whoops.  "Uh, Xavier.  Xavier Thornton.  Good to meet you."

Relatedly, they can see the hotel coming up.  It's not a skyscraper, which maybe helped it stay standing.  It's a little four-story building with a green metal facade.  It's near a park, which has a spray-painted 'helipad'.  No choppers currently in residence, though.  Every so often someone teleports into a sectioned-off area, with assorted visual effects.  There's also at least three groups of armed guards patrolling.

"Thanks for your help, Xavier."

With no helicopters in evidence it will not be immediately obvious to Parry or Lucky why the lawn has a big H spray painted on it, so they won't be intimidated by the impromptu helipad; which is good, because they are plenty intimidated by the armed guards and teleporting people.  She gets that she's an esper now but this really does not look like the sort of building that Parry Thompson just walks into.  Is Xavier gonna come along and vouch for them or what.

… is anyone going to ask?

She will look at him kind of expectantly but if that doesn't work yeah she is going to ask if he's coming in with them.  (She has really not adjusted to the notion that her just identifying herself has any sort of cachet yet.  Everyone has looked down their nose at her for so long, see.)

He actually does catch onto it after three possibly-awkward seconds.  He ducks his head in through the back window to tell his buddy that he's gonna walk the kid esper inside and make sure she's taken care of.  He hops out of the truck and stretches his whole-ass back, causing Significant Popping.  "Alright.  You ready?"

"Yeah."

In they go.