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The last thing she thinks before she's torn apart by the whirling vortex is that they are going to have to update so many workplace safety standards.
We find out if this SI is OP enough for Worm
"I'm named Yew," she tells him. "I know it makes a horrible pun -- you can continue calling me Alda if you prefer."
"I was originally born in a small town in Vermont," she replies. "But I moved around a lot (misleading truth). I was a scientist (true) -- I specialized in dimensional engineering (misleading truth), trying to figure out how to use spatial folding techniques to construct a pocket dimension (true). Eventually, one of my experiments failed in a way I still don't understand, and I ended up landing in this world (true). I tried to make peaceful contact (true), but the first group of people I met tried to kill me (misleadingly true). I ended up escaping and making my way here, learning about case 53s along the way (misleading truth). So I thought that if I pretended, I could get a legal identity here and figure out what to do next (true). I think my world of origin is more technologically advanced (ambiguous) -- I can reconstruct most of our technology (misleading truth), and I think doing so would help drastically raise the standard of living here (true)."
He marks up the live transcript with notes.
"Let's talk about the people who tried to kill you. Can you describe them, and what happened in more detail?" he asks, drumming his stylus against the table.
"I mentioned having limited shapeshifting, right? (True misdirection) I think that I scared the people pretty badly, in a way that I probably wouldn't have if I had been more normally shaped at the time (true)," she says, biting her lip. "As for describing them -- they wore dark uniforms, except for one guy in power armor, and a few in different clothes who showed up when I was trying to get away (true). They seemed pretty competently organized (true). I escaped and went north (misleading truth), but they somehow tracked me down and pursued me, until I managed to get far enough away (true). I think I'd lost them by the time I made it here (true)."
Now that he's settled in, she subtly starts mirroring his breathing and his posture.
"Cartel?" he scrawls in his personal notes.
"Do you know whether you had to cross the US border to get here?" he asks.
If she's not lying about the border, but is being misleading about it ... Did she take a meandering route that went south across it and then back north?
He drums his fingers on the table.
"To the best of your knowledge, where were you when you crossed into this world? When this group tried to kill you?"
She winces internally.
"I was pretty badly hurt by the accident (true), so I didn't see exactly where I landed (true). By the time I was aware enough to work out where I was, I was already in the group's base (true). And I escaped fairly late at night (misleadingly true). I could try to draw the area for you, and see if someone can figure it out (vacuously true)?"
This is, quite possibly, the most frustrating interrogation he's helped with this month. He decides to put a pin in the location questions and try to suss out more general details.
"In the time since you came to this world, have you committed any crimes? Do you intend to commit crimes in the future?" he asks.
"I don't know! (misleading truth)" she says. "I haven't read all of the laws, and they might be different between this world and my world (true). Nothing I have done or plan to do would be against the law in my world (true)."
He nods, and takes notes for a moment while he thinks.
"Let's discuss your powers. What else can you tell me about them?"
She shrugs.
"I don't know what else to tell you (true)," she says. "I can tell if someone is cancerous (true). I can tell where cards are in a deck (true). But I can't see facts that don't ... leave physical evidence in the moment, I guess? (misleading truth) Like, I couldn't tell whether someone was cheating on their spouse just from looking at them, although I might be able to spot a hair on their collar. (misleading truth)"
"I can change to look like different humanoid forms (misleading truth)," she offers. "I don't normally look like this (true). I mean, I normally change my looks fairly often (true). I like having freckles (true). Sometimes I'll sit in front of a mirror and move them around my face (misleadingly true)."
He exchanges a look with the PRT Trooper.
"I think we're almost done. Is there anything else about yourself or your circumstances that you think I would want to know?"
"Well, yeah! (true)" she exclaims. "I think there are probably a lot of things about me that you would want to know (true). But I don't want to share all of them (true). I mean, for example, I bet you'd probably want to know that shapeshifting means I don't need to wear a bra (true), and I don't really want to talk about my sex life on the record (false)."
You know what? He came here because it might have been a Cauldron matter, but San Antonio is perfectly capable of handling this without him.
"Okay, I think we're done here. Officer Fitzpatrick will escort you back to your temporary lodgings while we look this over, and we may have further questions for you as we determine how to handle your case. It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Yu."
She lets herself be escorted back, and then checks in with Xanthoceras to catch her up. They brainstorm next steps, and Xanthoceras slips through the straight of Gibraltar.
Later that day, a review of Yew's case pops up in front of a thinker who can spot connections between incident reports. He links her to Weeping Cherry's incident from a few weeks ago.
"They're both named after trees," he says on the conference call that this causes. "Yes, I'm sure. It's obvious."
The P.R.T.'s internal networks are surprisingly well secured — they actually have mandatory lattice-based public key cryptography, presumably some Thinker or Tinker's answer to Shor's Algorithm. But Yew has a lot of time on her hands. They are really taking their time about interrogating her more, and there's a fiber-optic that runs right past her room.
She doesn't want to play her hand by actively making requests, but eavesdropping on the data that happens to pass near her is totally fair game.
And she's bored.
So she knows almost as soon as the local PRT office does, when the report about her is made.