And Rete posts live project updates for him.

Behemoth attacks Pittsburgh in June of 2004.

His new necklace makes him better at coordinating people; he can pay attention to more at a time. He goes to the Baltimore PRT building to be teleported over.

And here he is, five miles away.

A little robot flies up to him. It looks a little like an enclosed quadcopter with slender crab-articulated legs. "Hello! I'm a Rete bot. Lorica can't hear your telepathy so I am here to relay anything she needs to know," it says.

" - right, good idea. Uh, I usually sing while I work - since it sucks - will that be a problem -"

"I assume you will not be able to speak simultaneously but it will not otherwise distract me."

"Okay." Sigh. He can see just fine from here, and he bounces his view over to everyone else coordinating, and he sings very softly and he watches people die. 

"What's Lorica even doing out there, she might as well be home, right, if the whole idea is that you work remotely -'

"She does evac; my chassis are not shaped or sized for that and would represent an otherwise unsustainable materials cost if they were. She can also do on-the-fly adjustments to the suit her father wears, and he is a teleporter; while I am capable of maintenance tasks I cannot improvise in response to new conditions in a Tinkerish fashion."

"But she might die and that's a pretty marginal benefit," he says while relaying instructions. 

"I have no official opinion on the value of Lorica's presence at Behemoth and Leviathan fights."

Behemoth lunges forward and he can see it coming but hardly relay a warning fast enough and a dozen people die and the rest scatter. "I think the Protectorate's habit of sending everybody is more about PR than good resource allocation and they should be ashamed of themselves. I need Lorica."

The bot doesn't answer.

He doesn't bring it up twice. 

After the fight is over the bot says, "Lorica is alive."

And it's utterly stupid that that was at risk. "She okay?"

"She'll be fine."

He writes her later. 

I don't think you should go to those. This is the most promising avenue on artifact instructions, and people needed to save the world probably shouldn't be anywhere they might get crushed by a falling building or a tidal wave or something.

I'm flattered.

I am actually uniquely useful when it's the Simurgh.

Okay, fair. You can stay out of the other two, though. 

I'll think about it.

Isn't it optional if you're underage anyway? You wouldn't even have to explain yourself.

I have to explain it to myself. And it's hard to be sure exactly how much my trigger circumstances have blown over.

Is it hard to explain to yourself? There are five billion people on this planet. Assuming with wild optimism that there are lots of secret projects to save the world and only a one in a hundred chance that this one ends up being the decisive one, and only a one in ten chance that you end up being decisive to it, then in expectation you not dying saves five million people. How many Endbringer fights are you going to have to attend to make that much of a difference? And I don't think there are lots of secret projects to save the world, I think it very well might actually just be us.

The secret project to which I'm potentially essential is 'have a kid who can wield certain magic powers'.

Hmm?

Rete can't do it, right? You need a person AI.