"...yeah, okay. Then it might actually be a good idea to join a team, even temporarily, until you've found your feet."

"Are there even any teams that aren't villains, the Toybox, or the Wards?"

"Well there's independent hero teams. I'm an independent, but not on a team."

"...Independent hero teams. How do you get introduced to one of those? I don't know anything about all this."

"Well the problem with those is that the Protectorate doesn't really... encourage... independent heroing. Like, they encourage roguing, but technically independent heroing falls under vigilantism which isn't really super legal. So it's not extremely easy to find them. Brockton Bay has that one that doesn't like secret identities, although I think they're actually official not independent, just not affiliated with the Protectorate."

"Well if the system - ugh. I could see 'roguing', not everything I try to build is meant for combat. But it's... Become clear to me that I'm the only one who can actually use the really complicated stuff I build. I don't know how well that would go."

"Yeah that's a tinker thing, reverse-engineering is also almost always extremely hard or impossible and sans constant maintenance everything falls to pieces. Toybox is mostly rogue though aren't they? ...well, mostly neutral anyway. Why not them?"

"Join Toybox and it's very easy to end up owing Toybox more and more for years and years. Or so I fear."

"Well, there's some of that, yeah, but it's kinda—more like a society of sorts? They give you money and parts to get you on your feet, you give them some when you're super rich so they can do the same to other tinkers."

"How do you know that if you're not a tinker?"

"I was a cape nerd even before I became a cape."

She feels very alone, all of a sudden.

"W-well, I can tell you're more heroic than not. Even if I'm not absolutely sure. So..." She trails off. "Nevermind. I need to go home and sleep."

"Okay. I have a cape email, although it's nothing official, it's glam at gmail dot com. Glam's my cape name by the way. If you ever want to talk or anything."

"I can't get to a computer very often but I'll keep it in mind."

"Good luck."

She goes home. She fixes her legs. She takes a day off from tinkering and goes to the library after school and verifies a lot of what Glam implied or told her. They do seem to be on the hero-ish side of things. What does the internet say about Glam given her limited ability to search it? What about independent hero teams?

There is absolutely nothing about Glam online. No Parahumans Wiki entry, no mentions on the Parahumans Online forums, nothing. Everything Glam said about Toybox and independent hero things seems to check out, though: independent heroing is vigilantism and against the law, if you wish to fight villains you should either register your team or join the Protectorate, yadda yadda.

Email to Glam on a random email address she just invented:

This is Hopper for lack of a better name. You helped scare off a thug for me the other day, but my leg got twisted. It's fine now. Your lack of online presence means I can't really trust you completely but what you said all checks out. I can get my hands on a pretty good walkie talkie set and I kind of want to talk more. Know a place where I could drop one end off?

P.S. Describe the thug so I know it's you.

Hi! Yeah I only really started capeing a couple of weeks ago so I don't exist online yet. Thug was a fire-themed mover-blaster, wanted to recruit you, didn't have a mask. And you can pick a place and a time to be and I can make a walkie talkie of my own that will communicate with yours. If you'd rather just leave yours somewhere though there's an alley—

And they give an address.

I was going to include some tricks to make it hard to intercept the signal, so I'll leave one end on the roof at-

She names a place near where the fight happened, and a time tomorrow night.

And there Glam is.

There's a walkie-talkie with clear signs of modification on the roof with a note attached.

Set 'channel' to '2' and 'phase' to 'A'. Push to talk.

They do.

"Helloooo."

"Hello. Good, you found it. I thought about things some and realized I never actually thanked you, you know? So thanks."

"You're welcome! How're you today? Feeling better?"