Lorica, of course, goes to check it out.

The building is in one of the richer areas of town, for a change, near the shopping district. It's an apartment building, expensive-looking, the kind with a fancy fence and a doorman and automatic doors and pretty art in the lobby.

Annnd is the doorman there?

Apparently not! The little cabin where the doorman should be is empty.

She flies over the fence and sees if the doors will just let her in. Failing that, field kit and electronic lockpicking and resisting the temptation to upgrade the door.

The doors will not, in fact, just let her in, but they do yield to electronic lockpicking.

Right then. Anybody around anywhere? Go bots go.

No one visible in the public areas: hallways, lobby, mezzanine, gym, pool, sauna, garage, tennis court, playground, employee areas, all empty.

Bots hear anything in the apartments?

Breathing. Slow, even breathing.

Lorica contacts the Brockton Bay Fire Department and then she pulls the fire alarm.

The fire alarm goes off. The only change in the even breathing is that it is now muffled by it.

Lorica hacks the alarm off again and calls in to HQ that there is some kind of sleep-or-something effect in this building, she may be a unique immunity and does not currently require onsite help but she'd like remote supervision and Glam backup.

Her request is acknowledged and she is asked to hang on for a bit. After a couple minutes: pop appears Glam.

"Nothing happened when I pulled the fire alarm. Whoever did this may or may not still be onsite."

"Send bots and copies to scout the area and cover more ground?"

"Yeah, there's some around a perimeter. You wanna do lockpicking or just outfit the flock with 'em?"

"It's probably best to have as many eyes on all doors and floors as possible, if whoever's still around."

"Yeah. So give the bots lockpicks please."

Poof. Except no poof because no sound accompanies the appearance of the lockpicks.

And bots start opening apartments.

Their immediate entrance halls are all empty. All doors and windows are also closed. The breathing sounds come from the places that are presumably the bedrooms.

Bots go to bedrooms.

Bedrooms: contain people! All of them contain exactly two people: one lying on the bed, apparently asleep, and the other dead and skinned, their skin used as a bedcover on the sleeping one.

Lorica takes forensic-quality images of each scene and says "Jesus fucking Christ" and relays for instructions because this is a little above Ward pay grade and does not match a known local cape.

Glam sees the feeds and decides they don't strictly need to look.

Orders from above: stop opening doors, wait for reinforcements. Drupe, Dauntless, and PRT trucks are on their way.

Bots stop opening doors. Lorica waits.

The heroes and the PRT trucks arrive. PRT suits go in and explore the rooms she's already visited. After they've caught up, Lorica's asked to leave the building but have her bots continue opening doors while the heroes and the officers continue exploring the premises, more slowly this time, one apartment at a time.

Out Lorica goes. Bots open doors and scout for capes.

No capes. The same scene, repeated over and over again, with only the slightest changes. Whoever did this made some effort to be poetic about it: what could be lovers, what could be a mother and her child, what could be siblings, what could be friends and roommates. The corpses are hard to identify but all the live ones are tenants.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Glam echoes Lorica.

"This is so fucked up. We have a new psychopath in town."

"PRT and heroes aren't falling asleep, so it's apparently not something still ongoing, but then why are these people still asleep?"

"Drugs, sustained effect targeting them individually, something like that?"

"I'm kinda concerned that there might be something wrong there, like maybe some trap or something."

"Yeah, honestly they should be sending you in to spring anything in there but maybe they know something we don't."

"Well they don't seem to be actually touching anything other than opening doors and looking at things, but I'm gonna volunteer if slash when they decide to. It's kinda surprising that every apartment has two people, surely there are more than two people living per apartment here on average? Where's everyone else?"

"Probably nowhere good."

Eventually the PRT has examined all rooms in the building and found them all to be variations on the theme. No clue on where the missing people are. They ask Glam to fill Lorica's flock a bit more so she can try to extricate the people from under the skin-blankets simultaneously.

"You think it's more likely that moving one will trigger the others to do something than that moving them naively is a bad idea?" Lorica asks.

"Whoever set this up is unlikely to have thought we would do it simultaneously if they thought about it at all, and doing it sequentially means it will take longer to get through all of them and give whatever more time to have an effect, if it takes time. And they're civilians, getting them to safety and figuring out what's wrong with them is the priority."

"Okay." Bots poise themselves. "Say when."

One of the Glam-provided bots pops.

"When."

"Hang on, just lost a bot - Glam? You all there?"

"Yeah. That's weird, I can make another one—" Another bot appears in a nearby room.

Lorica steers it into place.

It doesn't disappear!

Another bot does, though.

And then another.

"Glam what the hell?"

Pop goes the bot they just replaced. "I'm not doing anything!" Pop goes another bot.

"Anybody else glitching? My diagnostics are all clean..."

"Everyone stay at their current stations. Report your observations," the PRT commander requests.

(Another Glam-bot disappears.)

"Nothing to report," says Dauntless from the hallway where he's standing guard.

"Glam isn't even here! What would be interfering with them at this range? The bot video feeds are clean."

One less bot available!

And Glam whispers to their shoulderbot: "There are other things than just my attention that could be interfering. How sure are you the bot's feeds haven't been hacked?"

"Reasonably, but... hm." And on a broader channel, "I could come in and sweep for Strangers? Although anything the bots aren't spotting..."

"Good idea anyway. Master/stranger protocols in effect. Drupe, out of the building. Dauntless, constant visual on Lorica, you're her shield. Anyone going dark should be assumed taken." PRT officers start reorganizing. Most of them stay outside. Four stay with Lorica and Dauntless, two in front and two flanking. Once this has been done, the exits are foamed shut.

(Pop! Another bot goes.)

Lorica makes for the most recently missing bot's location.

Dauntless follows her with his forcefield active around them, crackling a bit as it moves and touches the wall.

Most recently missing bot's location is not obviously weird in any ways other than the whole macabre part everyone already knows about.

Lorica and some genuine-hardware bots fan out from there.

Further inspection continues to fail to reveal anything out of the ordinary in the non-comatose-person-draped-in-skin parts of the apartment. If whatever affected the Glam-bot was in this room, it has either left or is hiding under that skin blanket.

So she leaves the apartment; she and bots investigate the hallway.

Hallway: empty—

Another Glam-bot pops, upstairs.

"Upstairs," she says to Dauntless, and she runs for the stairwell.

Dauntless and the PRT officers go with her. Another bot pops while they do it.

Lorica does her best to zero in on the last known location.

And when she does, all windows (and only windows, no other glass surfaces) explode simultaneously.

"Screamer?"

"The Nine's last reported location was a town in the Midwest and they were going west," says PRT captain.

Yes but they have particular incentive to come here, Glam thinks. They're about to say something when the captain gives a command anyway and the containment foam cannons mounted on the trucks outside begin spraying foam on the broken windows, starting with the ones from the floor Lorica's in. It gets fairly dark very quickly in there, but electric lights still work—

—until they don't. The building's lights go out completely, the only illumination available coming from Dauntless' crackling forcefield.

"Power just got cut," Dauntless touches his comm to report.

Bots turn their projectors into lamps.

"Assume hostiles are in the building. It's unlikely to be the Nine, but it's someone. Drupe, go check out why the power went out. Lorica, do you have bots outside?"

"I can provide copies for her," Glam supplies.

"Do that, but hardware bots would still be a good idea."

"I have fifteen hardware out, yes."

Glam creates copies, and the officers outside use the foam solvent to get inside before being sealed in again with Drupe and the bots.

And Lorica and her bots resume casing the building.

The next time she visits a room she will find that the sleeping person has been hit by the glass from the window and is not waking up in spite of the cuts and embedded glass (which could be worse but are not mere scrapes either).

"The windows were not kind to the live occupants of the rooms. We're gonna need medical. They're all still asleep though."

"Acknowledged." Drupe, a few officers, and a few bots reach the fuse box. Every fuse in it is blown. "Lorica, after you're done exploring the building go check the backup generator up top."

"Who wants to bet it's busted, too?"

"Glam, please refrain from occupying the channel with commentary."

"Sorry."

"Should I try to fix it or just investigate?"

"Investigate, do not touch anything, report any anomalies. Are there any undisappeared Glam bots with you?"

"Four."

"And none disappeared since the glass explosion?"

"So far, yeah."

"Very well. Proceed upstairs, assume we're dealing with one or more capes rating shaker five stranger five. Assume hostiles are still in the building until further notice."

"Acknowledged."

Up she goes.

The PRT and heroes request and provide passwords periodically to make sure no one's been compromised, and other than the gore, everything's normal. Up they go, until they finally reach the backup generator, which is as far as casual inspection can tell whole but inactive.

Lorica inspects it a little less casually but doesn't touch anything.

A less casual inspection shows everything made of glass in it has been destroyed, as well as some of the more fragile non-glass pieces inside it.

Lorica reports this to the channel.

She's asked to make her way back down and out and scan as much of the insides of the building simultaneously as she can with her bots while she does.

Can do.

The comatose people are still bleeding a bit. She might want to hurry so they can determine the building clear of hostiles and get everyone out.

She's going, she's going. Can she get some more Glambots now they're not popping so much?

There they are!

And out they go.

The building continues to look completely clear of hostiles as they make their way down.

And then every single Glam-produced thing in or around the building disappears simultaneously. "What the fuck!"

"Seconding that, nothing else blipped, it's just Glam constructs."

"Building's in lock down, calling in reinforcements, Lorica you might as well send one of your bots to check one of the comatose victims for traps, see if we can't remove them from there. Assume hostiles are still in the premises, calling in backup, medical assistance should be here any minute but we cannot let the civilians out until we know what's going on. Dauntless, keep your shield up at all times."

"Acknowledged," Dauntless says.

"Acknowledged," Lorica says, and a hardware bot approaches a victim and looks them over.

The civilian is unclothed under the skin blanket, and much freer of blood than he should be under the circumstances. Uncovering him or moving him does not seem to trigger anything except for a little bit more bleeding from the cuts.

"Looks clear, at least on this one, but he's not bleeding as much as I'd expect."

"Can your bots check vitals?" the Captain asks after barking a few more orders for other officers.

(Glam tries making a new bot appear and it completely fails to. This is very worrying.)

"Checking." The bot takes a pulse.

Slow and weak. The person's whole metabolism seems to have been significantly slowed down. If there was any doubt this was power-caused it should be gone by now.

"Slow, weak pulse -" The bot gently opens an eye and checks pupillary response.

No response.

"No pupillary response, that's bad."

"Can you move them? Drupe's going upstairs to meet up with you and help."

"I can move them without dropping the forcefield," Dauntless offers.

"Do. Paramedics are here, one of the squads is, too, and Miss Militia's on her way with Rewind and Silica."

(Try again. Fail. Why.)

"Bots aren't specced for weight but I can carry them myself."

"Do it. Be careful. And," the Captain offers one half of a password phrase.

Lorica's bot produces the matching half for her, she's busy scooping up a guy in a coma and flying down the stairwell to turn him over to medics.

The PRT squad pour solvent on the foam covering the main entrance and do a password check again before scanning the comatose guy for any hidden traps or cerebral activity and handing him off to the medics.

And Lorica ferries more of them down and out.

Some of them are a bit less alive than just comatose. Other heroes and more officers arrive and scout the general area and the building, and other than the fact that Glam continues to fail to produce anything there (and doesn't mention to anyone they were trying) no further significant events occur.

Well, that... could have gone worse. Or better, but still.

It could. After all civilians have been evacuated and it has been determined that they are all in fact really comatose for real and not actually disguised people, they're all hauled off to the hospital attached to the PHQ. Heroes and the PRT squad continue to investigate the premises but no further clues about the powers of whoever decided this would be a fun prank to play are found. They return to headquarters to debrief.

What do they know about the powers involved?

Bot-poofing, without being on the premises (or being undetectable to Lorica and bots alike). Shattering glass-and-such. Metabolic effects, see medical reports for more. It is unlikely that the skinned people were skinned manually; it would have taken a long time. Entire thing was very subtle; inactivity, not activity, was noticed.

The medical reports suggest a deep coma with severe brain damage, with no external agents detected. It's not very likely any of those people will be waking up. And that is quite insufficient to determine much about the natures of the powers, but it does suggest more than one person, grab-bags of powers aren't typically that strong and versatile.

(...Glam doesn't mention the fact that it was copy-proofing in addition to poofing, because the hypotheses going through their mind are. Not very pleasant. They look fidgety and nervous.)

Lorica will ask about that later.

The combined effects suggest strong shaker, possible stranger but due to having completely eluded Lorica more likely breaker, blaster, or just shaker again. The skin and the coma suggest some kind of biokinesis.

And no one brings up the possibility that it might've been the Nine.

Well. Lorica does. The quiet approach is uncharacteristic but the scale and brutality and the suddenly appearing on the scene are about right and the power array's not far off.

Last confirmed sighting was pretty far from where they are, heading even farther away, and more recent alleged sightings seem consistent with that. Not to mention they're believed to be recruiting and Brockton Bay's somewhat short on capes at the moment (the Protectorate will be rearranging things and getting them new heroes when it can), and it doesn't really fit their M.O. A group of copycat killers are more likely, especially given that none of the applications of powers seen today really match any members of the Nine but they do match stereotypes of them.

(Fidget fidget.)

...copycats are a possibility, admittedly.

No one gives any more relevant suggestions or ideas. The files will temporarily refer to these killers as 'The Skinners' and written reports will of course be expected of everyone involved, to be filed by the following morning.

Glam slinks off as soon as they're dismissed.

"Are you okay?" the shoulderbot asks.

"...not really."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

They consider it. For a bit. They eventually settle on "I don't know."

"...should you talk about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it affecting you in a way that would potentially be better addressed with help even if obtaining help would not be fun."

"I'm... no, I don't think so? Maybe? I need to think."

"Okay."

"Sorry." Not "sorry, love," for some reason. They barely register the lack of the pet name.

They float back to their room.

Lorica goes to her workshop.

Sadde uncostumes and flops on her bed, then sighs and grabs her phone to browse a bit. Or just stare at it. She really doesn't like feeling ineffective, and someone shut down her power really effectively. And if she tells anyone they'll start questioning it and wondering what's up. But she could tell Bella, she knows all the everything about Sadde's power, she would be able to help.

...or she might think Sadde's losing her power, or her mind. Except that makes no sense, it clearly failed because of someone, the bots were popping one at a time. Except then they popped all at the same time, what the heck? But surely she didn't expect that to happen... did she? Her losing her mind would explain why she hasn't been feeling herself lately... But it's a bit too early to self-diagnose, isn't it? Yeah, it is, it'd be silly. She'll just... keep an eye on herself. And continue doing stuff as normal. Yes, she's fine.

"I'm fine," she declares to her shoulderbot, after about half an hour of deliberations.

"Okay."

The remaining tenants of the apartment building are found a couple of days later. Or rather, the remaining tenants' remains are: Brockton Bay wakes up to thawing body parts littering its streets, aligned so as to form an enormous 9 on it, from a bird's eye view.

"Told you so," Lorica does not say.

So they do not disagree out loud with her. Going theory still is that this is a copycat. Winter doesn't actually freeze anything, and this looks more like a homage than anything—the Nine themselves like to either make a map of destruction from tiny town to tiny town or to go big scale in big cities and make the news in splashy ways. Not that, of course, the huge body part 9 didn't make the news, and in fact now that the populace is more used to the idea of having bots spread out around town (since the incident with Blasto's minions) they request Lorica to do so.

Lorica bulks up the hardware bot supply considerably. She makes a stationary installation to churn out some of her parts; it doesn't get that close to self-replication.

And then it is: Christmas!

Yaaaay.

(Sadde receives: a slightly-denser-than-popular-level psychology book!)

Yaaaay indeed!

(And Bella receives: a book of the kind one reads for English class which Sadde made sure she hasn't read yet.)

Yay!

And would Sadde like to come to the Swan family Christmas dinner?

Sure! Christmas dinner sounds like a swell idea.

It's Christmasy, and dinnery. There is a tree and a turkey.

The turkey's delicious, and Sadde makes sure to compliment it.

(Feeling a bit squirmy about being there for some reason—she'd thought she was over the 'being nervous around Bella's parents' thing?)

"You okay?" Bella murmurs.

"Think so, we can talk later," she replies.

"...okay."

She squeezes Bella's hand.

...Squeeze.

Dinner. Dessert! Presents.

Presents!

A warning from her bot!

...Lorica goes and puts her helmet on to see what's up.

Screams! Lots of screams from inside another apartment building!

"Dad, Glam, got an attack in progress."

"Where?" she—they ask, costuming up.

Lorica relays the address and gets into the rest of her armor as Renée sighs and packs away the food for later.

Glam's already in costume then, and just waiting for Transit and Lorica.

(The screams have stopped, but as the bots go investigate in a bit more detail it becomes clear that all of the windows are boarded up and the doors are locked.)

"Dad, drop Glam off at HQ - bot'll path you to the building -"

So Charlie drops Glam off in HQ and then he and Lorica vanish again.

Glam: is dropped off!

The PRT has already been notified and is on its way.

And how would the PRT like her to play this?

Get Glam's help, Dauntless and Miss Militia are on their way, see what info she can gather without actually breaking in, and break in with bots once the officers and the other heroes are there.

"Glam, how's your bot supplementation doing?"

"As far as I know fine?"

"Supplement me some bots then."

Bots cloak - good early sunset - and approach the building.

And they're supplemented!

Good. What's to be seen about the building?

From the outside: boarded up windows, no one visible.

And then another scream comes from the inside, the blood-curling type one screams while they're being tortured.

Christ.

She's not breaking in but she can start investigating how to most easily do it.

The scream continues for a few more seconds then stops again and turns into helpless sobbing.

And there are Dauntless and Miss Militia on the latter's bike, followed by the PRT truck.

"Got what sounds like torture in progress, okay to go in? I can break in or Dad's here."

"Can your father aim inside? We got the building's layout to help him with that." They send her bot a file with a blueprint.

"Yeah, he can get in."

"Get your bots in to recon, first, it might be a trap."

So some bots unboard a window and file in.

They're in a completely empty bedroom, closed door, devoid of any active light sources other than the window they just opened and anything they might generate.

They can get past the door.

Same deal: all doors to other rooms are closed, place's completely empty, no light sources.

No screams, either.

Bots look for the place where they heard the screaming.

Bit deeper, deeper into the building—

—very big speaker box, connected to a laptop and streaming audio.

"...screams were coming from a computer. I wanna trace where it's streaming from."

"Do."

She can do this through the bots just fine.

Whoever set this up was either incapable of or unwilling to go to any lengths to mask their streaming location; it's very easy to find.

And it's a ways north, probably the fastest way to get there is via Transit, though if Lorica has bots around the area perhaps they could check the place out ahead of time.

She's got a few. Go bots go. And path a Transit path.

The location is, surprise surprise, a warehouse! Boarded up windows, again, and apparently soundproofed to boot.

In goes a bot.

The doors are locked and also boarded, and the boards seem to be quite thoroughly stuck, as far as the bots can tell.

"Glam, you wanna get this bot a circular saw?"

Bot, meet circular saw.

Circular saw meet boards.

Circular saw goes poof.

"Oh joy."

Maybe a few bots can pry a board off if they coordinate.

The bots cannot seem to pry a board off even coordinating.

"This is getting seriously annoying," they complain. And try making more stuff appear. And it fails. And this is really annoying. "Can your bots detect whether there's anyone in there? Like, I dunno, infrared?"

"I don't have that working through walls."

Try try try try!

...whisper to shoulderbot in private channel: "I can't even get stuff to appear."

"Is that localized?" the shoulderbot replies at once. "Try across town, here's a feed -"

They look at the feed—

—how can it be localized, is the same person in every scene? And how can they be preventing things from being conjured in the first place?—

—and fail.

"You sure no one's looking there?"

"Bot hasn't encountered anybody. Can you make stuff near yourself?"

"Yeah, I'm wearing my suit—"

What suit?

"...my suit's gone."

And given the calculated path, Transit should be arriving any minute now.

"We'll work on that later," Lorica says.

And Transit pops a bot in and pops himself out right away before his guaranteed safe landing point can change that feature.

The interior of the warehouse is not unoccupied, for a certain value of "occupied." There are people inside.

None of them are alive.

There is a laptop as the only light source, illuminating a wall. On the wall, the words 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' are written in copious amounts of blood. A corpse is stuck to the wall, with a Glasgow smile on its face, dressed like Santa Claus. Its gut was cut open, and its entrails are encircling a bloody Christmas tree standing to its side. The rest of the space completes the scene: a macabre Christmas feast, with corpses sitting at it, decorated with more Glasgow smiles, and on the table body parts, many of them looked like someone actually chewed on parts of them.

"Well that's fucking disgusting," comments Lorica.

The bot begins investigating the scene for whatever was streaming the audio and other points of interest.

There are more body parts strewn about in hidden or shadowy corners so as not to ruin the scene, and the source of the audio seems to be the laptop. There's a folder open with various audio files, all of whose "created at" timestamps refer to earlier today, the most recent one being just before the bots arrived outside to investigate. The wounds on the corpses are indeed fresh, and they all seem to have died of them.

Sigh. Lorica relays everything higher up. She is only a Ward and does not have to actually deal with this shit on a decisionmaking level today.

Higher up says she should use her bots to see if they can find anything nearby: trails of blood, suspiciously positioned objects, people, anything. If those files are anything to go by, whoever did this was there less than an hour before. If her bots can do anything like collecting DNA samples or maybe finding more stuff with UV light that'd be welcome. She could ask Glam for more bots if she needs them, and the other heroes and more PRT are on their way to investigate more thoroughly.

Bots can take samples, although they won't be particularly good ones since they don't have forensic kits and Glam cannot pinch hit right now. The bots zoom around checking for traps and clues and capes.

Illuminating the inside with UV light reveals 'AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR' on another wall—clearly whoever did this was expecting it—but the exterior of the warehouse seems to be quite empty of any clues.

"I think I've lost my appetite."

"You don't have to look."

"I'm not looking anymore, but I'm not sure I'll forget the scene so soon."

"Yeah."

"This is like some bad joke. If this is that fucking copycat they're getting better and better at imitating the Nine."

"I'm really not so sure it isn't just actually them, trying something a little new."

"I suppose it could be—"

But where's the Siberian's rampage? Winter's torture? Vellum's public appearances? The strings of apparent suicides that follow Nice Guy wherever he goes?

"—but it seems weird for them to change their M.O. so much. I'm not sure Jack has that much control over them, and their powers don't really work like that—well, I suppose it's possible Miasma's power might cause coma if someone's exposed to it for long enough..."

"You know they could be here just to fuck with you, that might be a different sort of campaign."

"If they're killing all these people just to fuck with me—"

That'd be terrible. All those dead people would be her fault.

"—this would all be my fault."

"That is not how fault works."

There must be something she could've done to prevent this.

"Well there must be something I could've done to prevent this. I don't know, maybe go on the offensive, try to think of creative methods to find them—if it's really them -, something like that."

"If you think of anything to track 'em down I'm all ears."

Maybe before, but now she can't even conjure her costume anymore.

"...I should probably figure out what's wrong with my power first."

"Yeah we need to work on that."

"Yeah, after all that's done." And there's the PRT, as well as Miss Militia, Dauntless, and Rewind. "...we really need more capes."

"That'd be nice."

PRT scans the area and, after they're sure there are no traps, the forensic team starts doing its job of figuring out any non obvious thing. The heroes spread out (Echo and Silica arrive soon after) to widen the search radius, and somewhat pointedly don't comment on the fact that Glam is not helping with conjured bots and whatnot.

The bots go where they are needed quite efficiently and do not comment on anything extraneous at all.

Then everyone's part of the 'not commenting on things' club!

(There is, of course, the whole 'it's Christmas and everyone's celebrations have been ruined now' thing but.)

And eventually everything's wrapped up.

And tied with a bow, ugh.

Lorica goes back to HQ and looks for her significant other.

Her significant other is still at the console, even now that all the cape-related aspects of the whole thing are over and all that's left is some more forensic shenanigans, identifying bodies, and informing loved ones that oops some crazy serial killer or group thereof has decided to make this Christmas extra special.

She's also frowning fiercely at the screen.

"Hey."

She looks up. "Hi," she says, sounding frustrated.

"Hi. We should do you some powers testing."

"Yeah. ...now? I mean I suppose this Christmas is pretty much ruined..."

"We can put it off but if it's possible to resolve it quick and they decide to ruin Boxing Day too for good measure..."

She sighs. "Yeah, you're right."

"So within the known features of your powers there's already two ways for this sort of thing to happen - squinting and psychological fuckery. I'm a reasonably good anti-Stranger but pure visual invisibility gets past me just fine..."

She looks around. "Can we, um, talk about this in your workshop or something? It's no one's shift to man the console now 'cause Christmas."

"Okay."

To Lorica's workshop.

To Lorica's workshop!

"If anyone's invisible, they're doing a darn good job of also being everywhere," she continues the conversation.

"Not necessarily. If it's just really psyching you out..."

"Yeah... Okay maybe the foolproof test would be getting hypnotized?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, get comfy."

So she does. "At least if I don't go under it'll be strong evidence for something going on inside my head. ...if it doesn't work while I'm under, what is that even evidence of?"

"That means something else is going on - really broadrange Trumpy stuff or something that interferes psychologically even while you're under."

"Yeah, alright. Okay, I guess I'm as ready as I'm going to be."

The bot starts hypnotizing.

And it takes a while longer than usual, but that's to be expected, and eventually she's under.

Okay! Can she conjure stuff now? Let's start with her costume.

There it is!

Good, good. And a bot?

Yup, bot!

Hooray! ...Bot across town?

As long as no one's observing the spot: bot across town!

Excellent! Generic Glamcopy?

There it is.

Cool. And when Glam comes to they're going to be feeling much better and more relaxed and confident in their power. Ten nine eight seven six five four three two one.

Up!

"...so I take it it worked?"

"Yup. Your power is just fine. You're just nervy and somebody's been trumping or squinting at fight scenes."

"Okay, so it should all be working, now." They try creating a copy, and there it is. "...sometimes my power annoys me so much."

"I don't blame you a bit."

"Having to occupy a certain mental state to use it is..." Sigh.

"Frustrating."

"At least is one I'm reasonably competent at consistently occupying? When there isn't a trumpy power ducking me over? I mean on balance I think it's a pretty darn good power to have even with the downsides."

"Um, yes. Yes it is. You killed an Endbringer with it. It is a good power."

They giggle. "I killed an Endbringer with it, yep."

Hug?

Hug!

Really?

Nnnnggghhh squirmy hug maybe a bit shorter than usual.

Okay. "We should get some sleep."

"Yeah. And have delightful nightmares about the evening."

"If you want the bot to hypnotize you to sleep and see if that helps it can be arranged."

"It... could be useful, yeah," they admit.

"Done. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Thank you. Good night. And, uh, thank your mom for dinner, it was very good."

"I'll tell her."

And with that they go to bed.

Boxing Day is unexciting except for the discovery that the body parts that looked chewed on weren't actually chewed on but rather made look that way artificially, so the Siberian's ruled out. The Protectorate however is pretty sure the Skinners will want to do something for New Year so everyone's at the ready then, patrols are spread out and redoubled, and no one's given the day off. So of course nothing whatsoever happens.

It does happen the next day, though.

Another apartment building's targeted, the symptoms being no one answering doors again. Investigation reveals that everything's functional and nothing bizarre's going on, except that every single person who lives there seems to have decided it was a jolly good day to hang themselves. The news will, of course, love it when they hear about it, yet another apartment building targeted. Brockton Bay is large enough that this is more or less statistical noise, but the news isn't known for being reasonable about this sort of thing.

And once again, Glam fails to help at all.

Okay, everybody hanging themselves - and the forensics look solid on it actually being that - really doesn't look Niney.

Yeah, fits the pattern of "something their powers could more-or-less accomplish but not quite their M.O." of these recent kills.

And while it's being wrapped up, Glam's called to Piggot's office. They show up and knock.

"Come in," Piggot says.

They do. "Good afternoon, ma'am."

"Hello, Glam. I'd like a private word."

She looks pointedly at the shoulderbot. The shoulderbot pats Glam on the cheek with one extremity and then flies out.

"Okay. So I probably oughtn't tell Lorica about what we talk about here?"

...this is oddly not distressing. They feel like they should be more distressed by it.

"Not by default. Can you tell me what seems to be the matter with your power recently?"

"Ma'am I would very much love to know the answer to that question." Should they tell her about the hypnosis? Probably, it's relevant information. On the other hand, it's not like anyone other than Lorica really knows how their power works in any amount of detail... "I mean, it's—working, right, I'm wearing my suit right now. But there's—something blocking me, I wasn't feeling anything abnormal and then these things started happening."

"Have you made any progress narrowing it down?"

Tell or not tell?

"...not really. I thought I had but, no."

"How have you been using your time recently, Glam?"

"...I've been reading? And patrolling? And, uh, hanging out with friends" mostly Chelsea "and with" my girlfriend "Lorica" why did they say Lorica and not my girlfriend? "and studying and stuff."

"Friends?" inquires Piggot.

"You know, the other Wards, people from school..."

"No new friends recently?"

Shooould they tell her about Chelsea, then? ...probably, yeah, they told Lorica, she can check up, there's no way they can hide it. And why would they event want to? "I did meet a person about three weeks ago, a tourist."

"Did this tourist say where they were from or why they were in Brockton Bay?"

"I don't remember where she said she was from, and she's a tourist."

...seriously what is Piggot getting at.

Piggot frowns. "It's interesting that you've had so much time to spend on your social life when your power is unreliable and there's a Slaughterhouse Nine copycat group in town."

What.

"I can't work literally all the time or I'll go crazy and besides I already work a lot and besides besides I haven't even seen her that much since the Skinners appeared!"

"Your power seems to think it's entitled to breaks too and you're saying you don't know why. You've been acting peculiar since Behemoth and haven't taken advantage of the therapy resources."

Well they are entitled to breaks, according to Youth Guard regulation, so what the hell?

"So you think I'm, I'm, traumatized by Behemoth or something."

"Or something."

They take a deep breath. "Thank you for your concern and advice, ma'am, I will—think about it."

"If you didn't realize this needed thinking about then there is an even more serious problem than I'd realized. Is there anything you ought to tell me, Glam?"

...do not make the smiley face reflect their facial expression. Not wholly, anyway.

"If there was, ma'am, I would have told you. I try to do things I ought to."

"Let me rephrase, then," she says. "Is there anything I ought to know."

Sigh. "I am not aware of any pieces of information you ought to have that you currently do not."

"That's an interesting way to phrase it."

"It was the most absolute way I could think of to say 'no.'"

Piggot frowns. "...You may go."

"Thank you, ma'am," they say, trying (and probably failing) to sound neutral, and stand up and make their way out.

The shoulderbot rejoins them when they leave the office.

Ugh no why are you here go away.

They don't say that.

Instead they say, "I think I'm gonna go for a walk to clear my head."

"In civvies?" the bot asks.

"Yeah. Need to get my mind off cape things."

"Okay." It buzzes off.

Away from the building, secluded place, costume off. He starts walking.

Stupid Nine copycat. Stupid Piggot. Stupid power. Stupid cape business. Goddamnit this isn't a good day, why did Piggot thought it was a good day after he had to look at a full building of people who'd hanged themselves? And of course it'll turn out that they didn't, really, it's all a trick to make it look like something Nice Guy could've done, just like all other times, and this is terrible and annoying and he kinda wishes he had someone who isn't neck deep in this bucket of shit to talk to.

Gosh, like who?

...

He texts Chelsea: I'm kinda down and need someone to talk to who isn't related to the reason I'm kinda down, are you by any chance free and willing to listen to me not-whine?

Yeah, sure, I'm done with this tour group in five, where are you?

He rattles off an address and suggests a meeting point as well as the bus station closest to it.

I'll be there ASAP.

Thank you.

And he goes there and waits for her.

She's there shortly and she sweeps off the bus and pulls him into a hug.

Hug!

...he clings a little.

"Oh you poor dear." Snuggle.

Snuggle snuggle. He doesn't actually cry, but he sighs a little into the hug. And it never occurs to him that this might have been comfort he could've sought from Bella.

Eventually he pulls away. "Thanks. Wow, I needed that."

"I give good hugs," says Chelsea.

"You very much do." That was probably one of the best hugs he ever got. "That was probably one of the best hugs I ever got."

"What's your preferred distraction?"

"Um, I don't know, I didn't actually plan this out, I just sorta..." He gestures vaguely.

"Well, we can just walk," she suggests.

"Yeah, walking's good," especially with someone not involved in the whole thing, "especially with someone not connected to it all."

"Did you want to talk about it, or...?"

It would be good, wouldn't it? Getting an outside perspective on it. Not the classified parts, of course, but just being able to tell someone else. On the other hand, it is kinda secret. Except he doesn't really even have a personal life to speak of, does he? His friends at Arcadia would all be targeted anyway if anyone wanted to get back on a Ward, and it's not like he's particularly close to any specific one of them, if he had to name a closest friend other than Lorica it would be Echo or Rewind.

He spends a couple of seconds chewing on his lip as he ponders this, then says, "I shouldn't, it's—kind of a secret, and..." But my, he does sound like he wants to be convinced to tell, doesn't he?

"I mean, I understand, of course, but I can keep secrets."

Of course Chelsea can keep secrets, who could ever doubt that? "Of course you can keep secrets, I don't—I mean—it's..."

He's really running out of excuses.

"I might make a better shoulder to cry on if I knew," she murmurs.

He sighs.

"I'd like to go somewhere more—private. Feels a bit too exposed, out in the open, here."

"I noticed a good spot a couple blocks that way."

"Okay. Lead the way?"

So she does. The spot is an empty building with a side door standing open.

In they go!

He looks around. He closes the door. And he leans back, expecting really hard that he'll actually land on a comfortable chair and not on the floor. It would be an exceedingly bad time for his power to not work, so of course it'll work.

It does.

Chelsea is surprised. "Oh my!"

He gestures at the chair that is now behind Chelsea. "I'm Glam," he confesses. He doesn't sound thrilled by this fact.

"Oh goodness, that's amazing," she says. "But why is that upsetting you?"

"...have you seen the news about the Skinners?"

"Oh yes. And they say it's statistically unlikely that anyone in particular will be hurt and they're going after apartments, not hotels, but..."

"Yeah. And I visited each of the scenes and it was kinda terrible and this morning I saw a four-year-old hanging from the ceiling fan and then in the afternoon got chewed out by Director Piggot for spending too much time socializing and not going to the therapist and because my power's been wacky lately but I'm pretty sure it's some trump power the Skinners have and I kinda needed someone who isn't a cape or in the PRT to talk to. I kinda—need to forget. That this all exists. I need the weird serial killers to be a sensationalistic blurb on the news, not my daily life." At some point he hid his face in his hands, and a sniffle might betray what they're hiding. He conjures a can to kick away in frustration.

"Oh you poor thing." She sits on the arm of his chair and wraps him in her arms and hugs him again.

The chair is suddenly much larger, and he leans into the hug. "And it's pointless to tell my friends, or my girlfriend, they're heroes too, they know about it, they're as bitter and frustrated and angry as I am, and it doesn't help that I keep thinking about how it could happen to them, too, has happened, we're still short on capes because of stupid Behemoth's little act of childish spite."

Snuggle snuggle pet pet.

"Rewind can turn back time, except there just wasn't enough matter left for her to do that to, they were reduced to smears on something that used to be asphalt."

"And the PRT's just not looking out for you like they should."

"I mean, what can they do? I could go to a PRT therapist but I don't have depression, I have very justified anger and frustration at the state of the world that keeps robbing me of the people I care about and being awful and terrible." It sometimes feels like everything he does is for nothing. "It sometimes feels like everything I do is for nothing."

Hugs. "Well, at the least they shouldn't be chewing you out when you're having a rough time already."

"Apparently I'm not doing enough." He killed Behemoth, after all, didn't he? "I killed Behemoth, what more do they want?!"

...

.......

.........oops.

"Uh, that was very classified please don't ever tell it to anyone."

Squeeze. "Oh of course I would never."

"Thank you," he murmurs, because of course she would never. She's Chelsea.

Pet pet. She rocks him a little bit.

"...so that's the mess I am right now. You can run away screaming if you want."

"Would I do that?"

"No, of course not, I'm sorry. Just, I guess I didn't even realize my head was so full of, of, of that until now."

Pet pet. "Do you feel better now?"

"...a bit, actually. Yeah." Squeeze.

"So your girlfriend's a hero too, that must be hard."

"Yeah. She's, uh, I'm dating Lorica. That's, also a secret, the PHO forums are already insane with speculation but it's better for our image if it doesn't get out."

"Her image is so serious all the time."

"She's really introverted, and it—actually kinda suits her. She doesn't even unmask to anyone that's not, well, me. She's a very private person."

"Hm."

He sighs. "I've been—feeling a bit. Weird. About us." Pause. "She and I, I mean."

Nod nod.

"I don't know what it is. She's—I mean, I like her, I'm—pretty sure I love her. She's ridiculously smart and driven and kind..." But also closed off, not really emotionally available, somewhat cold- That's not really true, though, is it? She is in fact usually emotionally available, but... "I'm not even sure what's wrong. I just don't feel like I can confide in her, there's something, I can't—I don't know what it is."

"Sometimes it just doesn't work," suggests Chelsea.