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Yesterday, this was an ordinary twenty-first century city. Today it's a war zone, tomorrow it'll be walled off and abandoned.
A few collapsed buildings, shattered streets, and assorted craters. The place is mostly empty, with scattered groups of mostly humanoid monsters roaming and trying to escape the guarded fence around the city. The most instantly noticeable change is an ongoing wordless singing in the back of the mind of anyone present. By itself it's just a sound. An unpleasant sound, and almost but not quite predictable as if someone were trying to attack the listener's sanity without saying anything, but possible to ignore. But along with it, any time a listener closes their eyes they get flashes of memories. Not their worst memories, but whatever negative ones can stick with them unforgettably. It builds up associations between the feelings in those images and almost anything else. Sometimes there's a recognizable common thread and other times there isn't.
An angel fights off teams of opponents. She's fifteen feet tall, extremely winged, with more wings than is strictly necessary for an angel. Even some of her wings have wings. All of them are asymmetric and varyingly sized. A spherical halo of weaponry surrounds her, firing at her more distant enemies from across the battlefield. Her opponents cycle in and out: a golden man, a man surrounded by a bubble, a woman in a dark costume, all flying. Others make certain to stay away after taking their turn, on rare occasions spending too long hearing the angel's music. Those ones voluntarily self-destruct.
A small group of ordinary humans takes refuge in a house as far from the battle as they can reach. The song is quieter here, and, they hope, less potent. Some of them run away from and back to the house, occasionally calling for help. They haven't found any.
whole_new_can
wormcan
"I mean, I can tell you what it'll look like, is animals looking perfectly happy after not needing to sleep for however long. If nothing goes wrong of course."
ertia
"Mm, call it - three days. Maybe two if these pills crap out on me. Here, have a bead." Kithabel gives her a bead. "Talk to it to talk to me."
wormcan
"Hello?" Amy asks. She's a bit surprised at not hearing her voice coming through an identical bead on the other end. "Is this on?"
ertia
"Making beads constitutes something to do," Kithabel says, guessing vaguely at what phone numbers might be.
wormcan
Amy puts a few things together. "Oh, right, you've been not doing things for a while now. We should probably stop being all conspiratorial so you don't lose time."
wormcan
More people are healed.
After three days, the bead informs Kithabel that the first set of test subjects has been sleepless and apparently fine with it. Testing on expendable subjects was a good idea though, as some of the early test runs have started acting funny. (Funny how? Who knows. She's a doctor, damn it, not an animal psychologist.)
After three days, the bead informs Kithabel that the first set of test subjects has been sleepless and apparently fine with it. Testing on expendable subjects was a good idea though, as some of the early test runs have started acting funny. (Funny how? Who knows. She's a doctor, damn it, not an animal psychologist.)
ertia
...But the later tests are definitely fine?
(Someone - whoever Piggot gave her bead to - is surprised that Kithabel is not taking Christmas off. Kithabel repeats that she Does Not Take Days Off, no, not even for Christmas. What the heck Christmas actually is still escapes her, but she isn't having enough conversations for this to be a really hazardous bit of low information.)
(Someone - whoever Piggot gave her bead to - is surprised that Kithabel is not taking Christmas off. Kithabel repeats that she Does Not Take Days Off, no, not even for Christmas. What the heck Christmas actually is still escapes her, but she isn't having enough conversations for this to be a really hazardous bit of low information.)
wormcan
The other subjects are acting indistinguishably from normal, according to the best judgment of an untrained fifteen-year-old.
And there aren't any non-sleep-related changes in the brains, which she would be in a position to notice.
And there aren't any non-sleep-related changes in the brains, which she would be in a position to notice.
wormcan
"You said you might be able to keep me on track with...you called it magic? Not that this is unsafe, but it could always be safer."
ertia
Kithabel orients herself into the necessary state of unchecked entitlement that the world be precisely as she wants it, specifically in the nothing horrible happening to her brain department.
"Go."
"Go."
wormcan
Panacea focuses. It's not a big change, but it is a complicated change. She can take her time. She starts rearranging a human brain for a very good reason.
After nothing at all appears to happen, she lets go. "Done."
After nothing at all appears to happen, she lets go. "Done."
ertia
"Thanks! Bead me if you ever need anything."
And then Kithabel zips off to do her list for the period-of-time.
And then Kithabel zips off to do her list for the period-of-time.
wormcan
Finding tasks is getting easier. Her PRT contact has started taking public suggestions for what they should pass on, loads of people want to hire her, and she even has (mostly token) blanket permission from the city to do anything she likes as long as it's easily reversible at the first complaint.
She's going to need some way to prioritize things.
She's going to need some way to prioritize things.
ertia
Yeah, can she, like, hire a PA or something? ...Is there a way to filter for trustworthy PAs that doesn't involve a lot of Kithabel's time spent hovering and not doing anything else?
wormcan
Within her constraints, not exactly. It's not like she has a long list of people she can delegate the filtering to. Her current default list of things people want done is coming through the PRT; she might be able to find someone at least as effective as they are using some combination of phone (or bead) interviews and a minimal amount of downtime.
ertia
The PRT will do for the time being. If they give her bead to anyone she finds particularly pleasant to work with or who seems to have a good sense of how to prioritize and order tasks for optimal variety, size, and productivity, maybe she'll try to poach them.
wormcan
In the meantime, there's a neverending list of things to do. (This list might be skewed toward things that benefit the PRT, just a little. Directly or in public relations.)
Few of the parahumans are interacting with her directly very often. Their main cape-related activities almost always involve fighting one another, and that doesn't change just from watching her get so much more done while staying neutral. She'll get greeted by a few fliers when they happen to run across her, but mostly her decision not to do any fighting results in her being a nonentity for most cape purposes.
Few of the parahumans are interacting with her directly very often. Their main cape-related activities almost always involve fighting one another, and that doesn't change just from watching her get so much more done while staying neutral. She'll get greeted by a few fliers when they happen to run across her, but mostly her decision not to do any fighting results in her being a nonentity for most cape purposes.
ertia
That's okay. She doesn't want enemies. Enemies get you put to sleep or occasionally sent to alternate universes.
And not having much social life means that she can talk to her beads back home, which she had been assuming wouldn't work until her mother spoke to her.
And not having much social life means that she can talk to her beads back home, which she had been assuming wouldn't work until her mother spoke to her.