With Armsmaster's death, Miss Militia is promoted to team captain. Even with the losses, however, the Protectorate ENE doesn't get new capes—all teams got hit hard by the last Endbringer attack, and even though it was by all accounts a major victory, it did not cause capes to start lining up to join.
Days pass, and winter hits Brockton Bay. It's pretty mild, as winters go, but it's enough to drastically reduce criminal activity. The heroes have an altercation with white supremacists the following week, but nothing much comes of it, as cape muscle seems to prefer to remain comfortable inside. Capes nationwide are somewhat subdued, perhaps as the aftermath of the victory against Behemoth. Nothing much seems to change, however—the Simurgh continues to fly around in her unpredictable pattern, Leviathan continues to be impossible to locate, lurking in the depths of the ocean. The public gets hopelessly contradictory information about what really happened during the fight from unofficial sources, secretly fed from official ones to make sure people don't jump to the right conclusions, and the topic loses its momentum.
And all of this completely fails to distract Sadde, who seems to not be getting better from the post-battle funk. Or, at least, not straightforwardly better. The depression and fatalism turn—maybe not completely, but at least a bit—into unease and anxiety, or perhaps stir craziness. It is, after all, true that, other than for class, Sadde doesn't really leave HQ a whole lot, not since they reached the comfortable position of being able to patrol from the comfort of the console—of, in fact, being more effective when doing that, for the average uneventful patrol.
Fatalism, depression, anxiety, and unease, all combined into a Sadde-shaped ball, are currently floating upside down in Lorica's workshop, failing to read a book while she fugues.
Gosh, isn't this boring?
(Although he usually does that by reading and he seems not-quite-able to focus...)
b o r i n g
"How much longer do you think she'll take?" he asks the bot.
"I'll interrupt her to break for lunch in an hour and a half," the bot says.
"If she asks, I have gone for a walk."
"Okay," says the bot. "Have a nice walk."
Well, the Boardwalk is a nice place to walk, isn't it?
It's so much pleasanter here! Much less cramped. Fresh air. People he hasn't met before!
...it occurs to him he hasn't really been spending a lot of his allowance, and that he actually has enough money to shop in some of these shops. Even the ones with the "enforcers"! That's a change. His conjured clothes aren't very fancy, but they're not shabby either—he's very much a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of guy, even if it's tight-jeans-and-t-shirt-that-make-him-lo
He starts idly window-shopping, looking at the various goods available for sale at prices much higher than can be found elsewhere in the city, if you know where to look.
Window-shopping's not that satisfying, is it? He's not planning to go home empty-handed, is he?
On the other hand, he does buy this kind of stuff—books, electronics—when he feels he needs them. Which is "not often," libraries exist and he has a PRT-issued computer which suits all his needs, he's not much of an electronics guy. But, hmm, he was just thinking about his clothes, wasn't he? Perhaps he could browse this nice store for something, even if only for inspiration for more imaginary clothing.
He walks in, confidently, drawing only the most casual side-eye from the enforcer at the door.
While his attention is on the clothes he bumps right into a young woman. Gosh, that's embarrassing, she fell right over. She needs help up.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I totally didn't see you there," he says, offering her a hand up.
"It's all right, I'm fine!" she assures him. She has such a nice smile. Is it really all right? Maybe he should make it up to her.
(She has such a nice everything. He doesn't stare, though. That'd be impolite.)
"Oh, thank you. I should have been watching where I was going." It's totally his fault though.
(Holy cow, though, is she pretty.)
(Not prettier than Bella.)
(...maybe a bit prettier than Bella. Come on, even Bella would say she's not indisputably the hottest person alive, there are bound to be people he'll find more physically attractive than his girlfriend.)
"So, uh, tourist or local?" he asks, out of politeness. She's clearly a tourist.
"Tourist. Why, is everything overpriced here?" Oh the poor thing she needs somebody to show her around.
"Overpriced's an understatement, they require you to promise your firstborn child." He shouldn't show her around. She'll think he's creepy, they've just met after he so rudely bumped into her, she probably doesn't want to see him ever again. But still, it can't hurt, can it...? And he's probably a better guide than she'll ever find. "I know several places that sell the same stuff or better for finite amounts of money, I could show you if you want...?" Good, make it clear he's not threatening and will totally take no for an answer and is not being a pushy creep, that's good.
"Wouldn't you know it, I only brought finite amounts of money." Hey, looks like success! She does not think he is a creep, lookit her smile. "Where are we going?"
"Downtown, it's a ways south, there are buses that way all the time. I think there are also tour buses," he adds dubiously.
"Oh, I decided not to do a formal tour," she says. "You don't get to meet anyone that way." Smile.
...bad. Do not kiss the stranger. That is creepy and also you have a girlfriend.
"Well then I guess I can be your impromptu guide!"
"You weren't busy trying to get rid of a firstborn child?" she asks, glancing around at the merchandise.
He starts leading her to the bus stop.
She follows him. "What's your name?"
"Right, of course, how rude of me. I'm Sadde, weird, I know, what's yours?"
"Chelsea. Does everybody make remarks about your name that you have to head them off like that?" Chelsea would never do such a thing. She is too nice.
(He should be getting used to how attractive she is by now, but no, if anything she's getting more attractive the longer they spend together.)
"Well, I'm glad it didn't traumatize you. I think your name's lovely, Sadde."
Anyway, here's the bus station!
"Aww, thanks!"
Grin. "So, what brings you to Brockton Bay, anyway?"
"It just seems like the place to be right now. I've been thinking I should travel more, you know?"
He nods, not because he sees what she's saying but because it seems like the thing to do. "You been traveling a lot lately, then?"
"More than I used to, for sure. It's been wild. Do you get out of the city much?"
And here's the bus!
She sits right up next to him on the bus. "Which place have you liked best to live so far?"
"Well, I barely remember New York, I left with the evacuees," which is of course true, "and I'm really not a small town person, so Brockton Bay tops the list."
"It does seem pretty nice! I bet you know all the best places to go here."
"Oh, I know all the places," he jumps at the opportunity. "I like walking around the city—though I haven't been doing it very much lately, today was the first time in months I just up and went out without a goal in mind."
"Oh, is this your day off?"
"My day off? Oh, no, it's not that, it's just..." Shrug. "Kinda always had other things to do? And then lost the habit."
"Aw, that's a pity. Your friends should encourage you to get out more."
"Yeah," he says, his mood darkening a bit at the mention of friends.
"Oh no, what's wrong?" Is he lonely?
He shakes his head, then grins. "Sorry, I shouldn't be dumping that on you, we've just met. Happier things. How long are you planning on staying in Brockton Bay?"
"I haven't decided yet. Open-ended trip. Are you okay, about your friend...?" He is not okay about his friend. Chelsea is patting his arm. She's so nice.
"I'm okay," he lies, even though he kinda leans a bit closer to her in response to the patting. She has such nice lips. Surely it's not bad of him to notice this. It's not like he's going to act on the desire to kiss her, this is completely the wrong situation for it, there'd need to be flirting and a whole leading into it, he'd be charming and all, and also he has a girlfriend so he won't actually do that.
"What happened?" Doesn't he need catharsis? Has he even cried?
"She, uh... it turns out she was one of the heroes who fell to Behemoth, this last battle. She went to school with me," he answers in a murmur.
"Oh, no, you poor thing."
"And it was a victory, right, he's dead, he won't ever kill anyone or attack any cities, but all I can think about is that the last thing he decided to do was blow up and kill even more people." Oops? Was that information even released to the public? Well, he's not very much thinking about it, now. "It doesn't feel like a victory to me."
If it wasn't released to the public, at least she's not evincing surprise. "Don't schools have counselors anymore?" Well, they're not doing a good enough job. Chelsea should be a counselor, look at that listening face.
"I dunno, probably, but I didn't go." Arcadia surely does, but in his case he'd probably have gone to a Protectorate therapist. "Maybe I should've, I dunno, but it feels a bit, weirdly personal in a way I don't know if I could really share with a counselor." The irony of sharing it with a stranger completely escapes him. The fact that she's so kind and nice and gorgeous doesn't.
"There's really no substitute for having friends you can talk to about personal things," she nods.
"Yeah..." He shakes his head again. "Gods, I've kinda dragged this conversation into a fairly unpleasant hole, haven't I?"
"Aw, it's okay, I don't mind." Really, isn't a sympathetic ear just too valuable to pass up?
"I don't really have a lot to say about it, though. It's mostly a knot of bad feelings and, and sadness about the unfairness of the world. How I wish there was something I could do." To prevent extra death, of course, and do better next time. There's some definite resolve there, in the background.
"That sounds so hard." Look how trustworthy she is. It's not like Sadde has a family to be out to, he should get one free "tell a stranger" pass.
(A part of him kinda wishes something bad would happen, like a mugger or something, so he'd be forced to use his power to help and then it wouldn't be his fault, and then another part screams at that first part that no that'd be awful what if she got hurt?)
He shrugs, trying to hide his thoughts. "I dunno if it's hard, I don't have a lot to compare it to, it's just—there. Always been. I want to help."
"That's really good of you," she says sincerely.
He beams, like the angels have validated his existence. "I try to be. Our stop's the next one."
And out of the bus they get.
"So, as far as shopping goes, what's your vice?"
"Ice cream, but shhh, don't tell anybody, I pretend it's sweaters."
He giggles and locks his lips with a key. "Your secret's safe with me. I know an ice cream place nearby, we could walk there if you want and I could tell you about Brockton Bay."
"That sounds wonderful." If a little impersonal.
...it is a little impersonal, isn't it. Well, he can insert some personality into it, for starters by asking, "What's your favorite ice cream flavor?"
"Pistachio, but I like most kinds, really. What about yours?"
"I have a reeeeeally hard time having favorites but I think it's probably strawberry." Personal anecdote time? Personal anecdote time! "I kinda pride myself in being weird, and it has been remarked more than once that this is an awfully normal ice cream flavor to like and it doesn't really jibe with the rest of my persona."
"What things are you weird about if not ice cream, then?"
"Oh, wow, so many things, there's a huge list, I could spend all day talking. But, I guess from most people's perspectives the one that tops the list would be," he swallows, "that I'm genderfluid." He shouldn't be nervous about this, he's pretty darn proud of it, but what if she doesn't like it?
"Oh yeah, what kind?" She knows there's kinds, that's impressive!
It really is! He smiles. "Mostly a spectrum along the binary axis? I feel like I'm more boy and therefore less girl, and vice-versa, depending on the day. Sometimes I'm pretty neutral and just go with whatever I was the previous day, and it doesn't usually change while I'm awake but sometimes it does. Most commonly I just wake up feeling like something or other and dress and behave and prefer to be gendered accordingly."
Nod, nod. "It's really great that you've got that figured out, so many people go such a long time without knowing that sort of thing about themselves."
"Oh, yeah, I've known this forever. My mother said it was obvious since I learned to talk."
"Awww!"
"Didn't have the easiest of childhoods. The reason why I moved to New York was that my mom divorced my father because he was kind of a butthole about it." Note the mom vs. father.
Oh, she notes it. "I see. That was good of her."
"Yeah. And theeeen she died in '94," New York '94 should be obvious enough, "and I had to move back in with my father, so you might have guessed why I have—have had, anyway—a particular grudge against that particular Endbringer. Wow, can I not bring the conversation there all the time? Well done, Sadde."
"It's okay, it makes sense it'd be on your mind!" she assures him. "Oh, you poor thing."
He shrugs a bit. "And there was also some bullying about the genderfluidity, so I likely built the pride in being weird as some form of coping mechanism. Too ingrained in my personality by now, though."
"Oh, what do you mean 'too', I think it's charming."
He grins. "By 'too' I mean that there's probably absolutely nothing I could do to remove it, not that I'd want to. I like myself."
"Good!"
And it turns out to be called 'The Ice Cream Place.' It's small and very charming, a short building among several tall ones, quite incongruous with its soft primary colors and a list of several flavors on the door. There's a fair number of people inside, too, apparently it's a well-known ice cream place.
"Ooh, I like it." In line they get.
"Okay, now it's your turn."
"My turn?"
"Tell me more about you! Let's start with concrete questions, where are you from?"
"Kansas! Not too far from Kansas City."
"Oh, that's a pretty long way away!"
"Yup. I had a long flight here and my seatmate didn't want to chat."
"Clearly your seatmate had very poor taste."
"Aww! Well, you're a lovely conversationalist yourself." She pats his arm.
"I'm glad you think so. But I seem to have forgotten to talk about the city, I'm not a very good tour guide."
"I've got all day if you do."
He beams. "Well, after ice cream I could show you around and then we could have lunch, in what's an inversion of the natural order of dessert and main meal that would send mothers all over the nation screaming."
"Those poor mothers. We should make sure to get salad so they'll feel better."
"Yep. But first, ice cream!" he says, now that it's their turn in line. He collects her order—there are various possible sizes and flavor combinations—gets his own ice cream, and pays for both of them.
She gets a cone with pistachio and chocolate chip cookie dough! "Oh, you didn't have to do that, I can pay you back." But that would be unthinkable.
"Don't worry about it, I don't really spend a lot of money on—pretty much anything, so it's nice to make someone else happy with it."
"That's so sweet."
"I'm not very big on personal material wealth, owning stuff, that sort of thing, anyway."
"No? What are you all about, then?"
"I'm a huge nerd. It's one of the ways I'm weird."
"Like what kinda nerd?"
"Most of 'em. I like knowing things, learning things. I read a lot, I like behavioral economics and math in particular. And I'm also kind of a cape geek."
"Behavioral economics?"
"Yeah, like, studying the way psychology and how people think and feel affects their decisions, particularly when it comes to economics, but economics is a microcosm of the kinds of systematic mistakes people make, and how they tick. I like understanding people—I like people."
"People are the most important, most interesting thing in the world," she agrees emphatically.
"They are! People are so interesting, I just want to know all about them. And, again, still your turn! I keep talking about myself, you must be exhausted of listening to me.
"But you're a person and therefore one of the most important and most interesting things in the world," she says. "I'm not tired of it at all."
He grins. "Sure, but so are you, so."
"All right, you got me; what else do you want to know?"
"I dunno, I've more or less told you random things about me, you could do the same!"
"Oh, let's see. I'm an only child but I always wished I had a big family. I like movies and museums and I used to do a lot of hiking but I've fallen out of touch with my hiking buddies and it's no fun alone."
"I'm sorry about the hiking buddies. I never went, the only place anywhere near here one could do that is Great Bay National and it's tiny." Does it count as a date if he asks her to go see a movie with him? Perhaps a museum is safer, but Brockton Bay is fairly short on those, there's only—" But Brockton Bay has a boat museum a bit north of here, actually."
"Ooh, a boat museum!"
"Yeah! It's really a Brockton Bay history museum, but said history has lots of boats in it, so. The shipping industry used to be the backbone of this city. It's one of the reasons it's gotten so much cape attention over the past couple of decades."
"Ooh, you did say you were a cape geek. Do you have a favorite?"
"Here in BB, I used to really admire Armsmaster, and the way Glam and Lorica team up and combine their powers to deal with stuff is really awesome." He glows a bit inside when he says that. "Less locally, I think Narwhal is awesome, and Alexandria, too." Pause. Sheepish grin. "I did say I was bad at this whole 'favorite' thing. How about you?"
"I was a big Alexandria fan when I was a little girl. Pajamas and action figures and all."
"I never was one to collect action figures and pieces of clothing like that," he muses. "I was more the kind who read up on them a lot and would think about who'd win in a fight, how to best apply a given power to a certain situation..."
"A tactical cape geek."
He grins. "Well, yeah, a bit. It's all in the same package, really, I like figuring stuff out, how things tick, how people tick, how powers tick, how strategies tick... I'm a ticking guy. Sometimes a ticking gal. Other times a ticking enby."
"So - let's see, what's a classic - how do you beat Eidolon?"
"Well, what do I have in hand? Just in general, throw Scion at him. Gimme constraints!"
"No Scion, no attacking him in his sleep unless you put him to sleep during the fight, pick any two capes under class S."
"What's the battlefield like? Is it an ambush or does the fight start with everyone fully aware of the others?"
"Call it the latter."
"Okay, so, hmm, when you said no class S capes did you mean to also include heroes who routinely fight class S threats like Alexandria and Legend or do I exclude those, too?"
"Mm, leave them out, make it a challenge."
(Slurp slurp ice cream.)
She laps at her own cone and listens attentively.
"The trick to dealing with him will always be being unexpected enough and vary fast enough that he can't respond appropriately. A head-on confrontation is bound to be doomed, need to approach this from an oblique angle, use his habits against him. Can I use heroes, villains, and rogues, or am I limited there?"
"Oh, take your pick. But they have to win, he can't escape."
"What counts as winning?"
"Mm, if he winds up dead or captured I guess? Go for captured if that's pleasanter."
"Hmm... Well if I had time to prepare I'd get Accord so he could design an appropriate plan, but he's not good at spur-of-the-moment design. Eidolon has a few patterns, he always has a power that grants him flight or some appropriate facsimile, and is reluctant to give up powers that give him some defensive advantage. The third power is usually offensive, and a heavy hitter, and that one he's usually okay with changing in the middle of battle. Sometimes the flight-granting power has offensive applications as well, so the two capes will either need to be really darn resistant or to be able to dodge. And whatever solution I come up with will have to disable him fast enough that he can't adapt to it. Hmmmmmmm..."
Chelsea listens in fascination.
"How far in advance does Eidolon know about this fight? Has he had time to prepare for these specific opponents?"
"Hmmm, knows a fight's coming in plenty of time to swap powers, but not with who."
"Are there civilians on the battlefield the combatants will have to be careful of? Assuming the other two would care about this, of course, which depends on who I pick."
"Let's say there are."
"So I can't just have Miss Militia drop a nuke on his head while another cape holds him. And anyway that's too much direct confrontation to work with him. So, deception. Theoretically he can use thinker powers, but if he's going with a broad selection for an unknown fight it's unlikely he'll get any good ones. Can I get people from the Birdcage? Glaistig Uaine would probably help a lot, she's basically his opposite number."
"Hmmm, let's say no Birdcage."
"Darn it, you're killing me here!"
"Do you not want a challenge? Should I let Eidolon have a friend along?"
"I can figure out how to deal with Eidolon plus friend later, let me crack this one. The two capes should go in expecting something general, so there'll be something that does damage but I'd expect more like splash damage, laser beams as opposed to, say, fire, or bullets. But he won't be using all of it because of the civilians, and his choice of mobility power will likely not be that destructive. The biggest variable is I think his defensive power—he can go toe-to-toe with Endbringers and not get hurt beyond his power's ability of regeneration. I think... maybe this is too local, but I think I'd go with Oni Lee and Glam. And if not Oni Lee, perhaps Leonid from the Vegas team."
"I'm not sure I know what Oni Lee does? Or Leonid."
"Both are teleporters, but in different ways. Leonid can hear anything that happens within a certain radius of himself, and he can scream and use the echo to teleport. He can also manipulate sound. Oni Lee teleports but leaves a copy of himself behind that can act autonomously with all his intelligence for a few seconds before turning to dust."
"Huh. So why those matchups?"
"I like the Oni Lee and Glam matchup in specific because they can make the battlefield chaotic. Both of them can make copies appear, and furthermore Glam can make copies of Oni Lee, if their demonstration at the school a few weeks ago was anything to go by, and Eidolon would have to switch to a power that allowed him to either figure out who the real target was or do broad damage that didn't get the civilians. And in any case both of them are smart enough to be able to dodge pretty much indefinitely, and to hit him until he's down—Glam especially."
"How do you tell how smart heroes are? They're all coordinated by whoever's in charge."
"Not really. Oni Lee, for instance, was a solo villain for a while here before Lung collected him. Glam also used to go solo, dunno why they decided to join up." Shrug. "But, there's a way you can tell? Like, plan never survives contact with the enemy, right, and the news only shows us the way stuff goes right but even then you can sorta see which capes can react well and think on their feet and which can't. I, uh, may spend a lot of my time scouring the internet and such for these news clips."
"Oh? Where's the best place to get them?"
"The Parahuman Online Forums has repositories of their stuff, as well as pages upon pages of speculation. You can also find original news clips in libraries, I think."
"So is Glam the smartest one around or what?"
"Nah, Lorica probably is, here in BB, although maybe Miracle Max could be smarter than her, he doesn't use his specialty for combat much so I haven't seen what he can do, and tinkers in general tend to be. Maybe Transit, his power doesn't show off any smarts he might have. But I can definitely not tell you who the smartest cape ever is, too many thinkers to muddle up the equation."
"Yeah, thinkers are confusing."
"Well, this was fun. And I still haven't talked about BB itself other than cape business and the museum. Should I take you shopping like I promised I would?"
"I thought we were going to go get salads first."
"Sure, if you want. There's a nice restaurant on the way to this shopping district I could show you."
"Sounds great!"
So he starts leading the way. "By the way, it's Italian. They do have salads of course, but it's Italian salads. ...whatever that means."
"Probably depends on the restaurant."
"In Italy it probably would, but I think there's a general feeling of sameness when it comes to Italian here."
"Well, you never know, some places it might just mean Italian dressing."
"Well this one has pasta and it's tasty pasta, and it also has salad."
"Sounds great."
And since Sadde took that bus specifically to go to the shopping district, they're not far at all and they have arrived.
"Oh, this place looks great!"
"Yup! And this is actually only the second time I come here." The first having been when he became a Ward and started getting enough of an allowance to be able to really eat out.
"Don't eat out much or you've got lots of restaurants around you like?"
"Bit o' both, mostly the former."
"You seem so adventurous, what has you staying at home all the time?"
"Well, not at home, there's school, and homework, and work, and then I do like spending some time at home reading or being a cape geek." And presently someone arrives to find them a table. "Table for two, please."
They get a table. And a candle. "Oh, you've got a job while you're still in school. What do you do?"
"I'm a waiter! At another restaurant. Not a very glamorous job." Heh. Glamorous.
"Oh, which one?"
He gives her the name of a restaurant a ways north of Arcadia owned by the Protectorate used as cover for just this kind of situation.
"Is it any good?"
"Nnnot really, but it pays decently enough for my needs."
"Well, that's good at least."
"Now in spite of promising mothers across the nation to eat salad now, I think I'm gonna go with pasta anyway."
"You can do both, looks like the entrées come with a side salad."
"Oh, well, then I suppose said mothers will be relieved."
"They'll be very grateful. You've set their hearts at ease."
He giggles, and starts scanning the menu for something he likes.
"Ooh, I can't decide between the gnocchi and the veal..."
On an impulse: "I could get one and you the other and we could share."
"Ooh, that sounds great!"
"Fantastic, then! And what will you have to drink?"
"Hmm, I don't know, Italian feels like it calls for wine but it's lunchtime..."
"I'm not actually old enough to drink," he admits.
"Oh, of course - sorry - my fault, I knew you were in school."
"No, it's alright. But you can order wine for yourself? I won't tell if you won't."
"I couldn't possibly, I'm all social drinker. It's all right, it's too early anyway."
He shrugs apologetically. "I'll probably just have some water."
"Water for me too."
"So what do you do with your spare time, when you're not travelling across the country?"
"Oh, didn't we already go over my hobbies? You, now, who do you do all your geeking with?"
...a friend? Not a girlfriend? Why would he be reluctant to mention it was his girlfriend.
Well, he is, whyever that might be. "Can he keep up with you?"
"Uh, it's a she, and yeah, she can, but she's not as interested in it for its own sake as I am."
"Aw, well. It'd be too much to ask for one's friends to match one quirk for quirk."
"Not that desirable either, I don't think. I mean, there's already one of me, not much point in having someone else that will just do exactly the same stuff I do! Variety's the spice of life."
"That's true!" Although socializing principally with one person is lonesome, isn't it?
It kinda is. "I do have a few other friends, of course, but those are even less interested in cape geeking than she is." Perhaps because they're capes.
"And your other friend didn't even tell you she was a cape." Aaaaaaah he's lying to Chelsea why is he doing that.
"I—I mean, I understand why she wouldn't?" Not 'didn't,' 'wouldn't.' "If people find out about a cape's civilian identity they can attack their families..." He doesn't sound like he thinks this stands up to a whole lot of scrutiny.
"Brockton Bay's famous for New Wave."
"...yeah. But, like, their whole family is capes, so... But on the other hand it's not like cops do the hidden-identity thing..."
"Not unless they're doing undercover work, and I don't think that's so often a cape thing."
"I'm pretty sure when capes go undercover they do it the other way around."
"Exactly."
It's been... a while since he's let himself get this close to a civilian, and it feels weird that he's already this attached to Chelsea, and all of that gets all mixed up by how he doesn't want to keep lying to her and amounts to what's probably the first time he spends more than two consecutive seconds not talking or listening to her talk since they met.
Oh, look, food and extra plates for sharing. "Bon appetit!"
"Bon appetit!" he tries to mimic, and doesn't butcher it too badly.
She giggles and steals half his gnocchi and gives him half her veal.
"Come to a conclusion about which one you like best?"
"I think the gnocchi's a little better but I might just be saying that because I never have room for a full serving of meat the way restaurants portion things and I was definitely done with my half of the veal when it was gone. You?"
"Bad at picking favorites!" he says, grinning. "They were both pretty good."
"It's a lovely restaurant."
"Mmhm. So, shopping now?"
"Shopping!"
"I believe I interrupted you from browsing around clothes?"
"I don't really need anything, it was mostly just window shopping without the glass in the way. I would like to have some kind of souvenir, though."
"Any particular kind of souvenir in mind?" he asks, starting to lead the way again after having paid for the food.
"Not picky. Something to remember you by." She blushes when she says that.
"Um, me, specifically?"
Oh no he flustered her she doesn't even know he has a girlfriend.
—aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
—aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
"—I, um, it may be relevant that I kinda have a girlfriend. Uh. Monogamously." He needs to clarify this because, well, it's the relevant aspect of having a girlfriend.
"Oh."
He shuts up.
"It's - it's fine -" It's not fine, this poor girl, he just bought her ice cream and took her out to lunch and didn't even tell her he had a girlfriend, he's horrible.
"No, I, I really should've told you earlier, it, kinda never seemed like the right moment and, and I'm terrible."
"What's she like?"
Well, she never looks at him like that, does she, vulnerable and soulful.
"She's really, really smart—she's the, uh, friend I cape geek at, I should've mentioned it there, but—and very driven? When she wants a thing she goes and figures out how to get it and then does that thing. She's very, umm, she's the taking-charge kind of person? Very introverted, doesn't really socialize much..."
Chelsea nods. And looks up at him through her eyelashes. "Probably bisexual to match and everything."
"Uh, no, actually, she's, uh, straight."
"But you're not always a boy, right?" God, isn't that annoying? Like, almost half the time -
"Yyeah, I mean when I'm a girl we can't kiss or stuff, but we're still, like, dating, and we hug, and talk, and stuff."
"Oh. Well, if that suits you." It doesn't, does it?
"It's, you know, I had kinda expected it since always, so it's not that bad. It wasn't too likely I'd end up finding someone who wouldn't mind."
"Oh, that's so sad, though," Chelsea says. "There are plenty of people who do like girls and boys and in-betweens."
"Statistically, not all that many. It'd, like, have been nice to find someone who does, but not terribly probable."
"We exist."
Of course. Of. Course.
"...yeah, we do," he sighs.
"But, I mean, if you're happy -" he's not happy "then, then that's good."
"I love her," he sighs. "And there's no such thing as a perfect relationship, right? I—wouldn't be dating her if I didn't think it was worth the sacrifice." But it is a sacrifice.
"You shouldn't have to settle. Settling's for people in their thirties."
That makes him crack a smile. "I never really thought about it that way."
She sticks the sticky note to his shirt.
"I—she really wouldn't mind hanging out as, as friends," he says, a bit helplessly. "Or, or, you know, just a tour guide."
"...I don't know..."
"I don't want to make you uncomfortable so if you prefer not, then we'll... not... But I like you and today's being fun and I'd like to keep hanging out."
"I just really like you and I don't want it to be awkward."
"It doesn't have to be awkward! We can choose it not to be awkward."
"If you say so."
"Yep! I'm completely shameless and excitable as a ferret, the awkwardness will be gone in a second." He beams widely as if to prove his point.
She smiles a little. "Okay. No awkward."
"That's the spirit! So, souvenirs? There's this one gift shop close by that sells the same stuff you'll find on the Boardwalk but for half the price."
"That sounds nice."
"Off we go, then!" And he resumes leading her. "So, you mentioned you don't have anyone to hike with anymore?"
"Yeah, she got married and didn't have time anymore."
"Oh, that's such a shame. Although I guess I'm not one to talk, I let akrasia of all things stop me."
"Akrasia?"
"I think the definition is 'acting against one's better judgment through weakness of will.' Like when you set your alarm to snooze and then you have to run and skip breakfast because you're late, when you know you should've just gotten up the first time the alarm rang, or when you keep procrastinating going to the gym because it's just so boring."
"So you keep meaning to hike but you don't get around to it?"
"Not hike, but do this, walk around the city for no good reason."
"I think exploring's a perfectly good reason."
"Yeah, but I kinda know this city like the back of my hand, it's not much exploring. Maybe reexploring?"
"Rediscovering."
"That works!"
"Well, it's all new to me. What's obvious on a second look at this street?"
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes if you look at something twice don't you notice different stuff that wouldn't be clear on a first look."
"Oh. Hmm." He looks around. "That building is slightly skewed to the left," he says, and points at a 10-story building that is, in fact, slightly skewed to the left. Vvveeeeeery slightly.
"Huh, it is. I wonder how that happened."
"Brockton Bay was a very... organically built city? Stuff just kinda started being built and refurbished as was needed, so you'll find a lot of places with stuff like that, or super modern tall buildings side-by-side with small, quaint, old ones."
"Huh, I was thinking some cape fight knocked it over just a little bit."
"That'd be a very weird fight," he laughs. "To just knock it over a little bit like that and not, like, destroy it or damage it any other way."
"There are weird powers!"
"Very true," he admits. "I can't remember any Brockton Bay cape who could've done that but then again I don't remember the entire history of capes in Brockton Bay by heart."
"Awww, should I be disappointed?"
"Well, it's already lots of work keeping up with capes that are currently active, if I were to deal with the past thirty years of them I'd never do anything else!"
"Fair, fair."
"But most of them were villains, that's one thing I know."
"The skew's sure something."
"Not 'cause of that, I mean historically. We have one of the largest concentrations of capes in the country, and a lot of it was because of villains seizing the import business when it was booming and then the Protectorate stepping in to curb that. Now there's an equilibrium of sorts, what with the industry pretty much sunk, but it's a tense equilibrium and our Protectorate team has high priority when petitioning for capes."
"Huh, I didn't realize."
"Yeah. The Empire is a big part of it nowadays, they have a lot of superpowered muscle and keep getting more, they're rumored to have links with the Gesellschaft in Europe, the Protectorate needs to keep a lid on them. Aaaand here we are," he says, as they reach a little strip mall between the tall buildings, and heads to a specific gift shop there.
Follow follow.
And, as promised, the price tags are nowhere near the kind of thing one'd find on the Boardwalk.
"Wouldn't it be a little weird to buy a Boardwalk postcard from, well, not on the Boardwalk?"
"You can buy a Downtown postcard instead," he suggests. "The only difference between these and the ones on the actual Boardwalk is that these pictures were taken a year ago and the ones there would've been taken more recently."
"Hmm." She gets a Downtown postcard, rummages for cash.
"Nnnnope, my treat, to make up for the awkward earlier," he says as he grabs his wallet.
"Aww, you're so sweet," she sighs.
"Are you planning on sending this to anyone or just keeping it as a memento?"
"I'll send it. I'm not sure to who yet."
"Cool. So, what next?"
"You're my tour guide, you tell me. What have I just got to see?"
"Welllll... have you gotten a looksee at the PHQ yet?"
"No, where's the best vantage point?"
"Right in front of it. It's really tall, and looks awesome. And there's the light bridge between the ground building and the floating dome which is pretty rad, and shines in a million colors."
"Sounds gorgeous."
"It is!" He looks around the gift shop and hmms. "I guess the PHQ's gift shop probably has postcards and miniatures."
"Probably does."
"Then, shall we go? I know just what bus to take."
"Sounds great."
To the bus! The PHQ is more or less halfway between the Boardwalk and the Shopping District.
"I always find buses in a new town very confusing, I'd probably be hemorrhaging cab fare if it weren't for you."
"I got them more-or-less memorized last year. Except not really memorized but I more-or-less know the web of buses and can find my way from anywhere to anywhere else."
"Is this not a good place to have a car?"
"Well, on the one hand it doesn't have a subway system, but on the other the streets weren't very well planned and can sometimes be a pain to drive around in. I myself like walking and taking the bus, see the sights, occasionally meet people, even when I'm not as aimless as today."
"It is a bit of a maze, isn't it."
"Yup, part of the whole 'grew organically' thing, stuff just started appearing in places where people needed it, and local optimization almost never reaches global optima."
"Why not?" wonders Chelsea.
"That's the same principle, if you only do things that make your immediate situation better you will almost never reach the most desirable place you could've designed with planning and forethought."
And eventually they reach the PHQ. They go on one of the tours, conveniently starting soon after they arrive, and Sadde provides commentary on the tour guide's description with information that's technically-public but would need some digging to find out. They visit the gift shop at the end, and Sadde buys her yet another souvenir. They chat more, walk around aimlessly, he points Arcadia out—another fine example of architecture—and eventually he invents an excuse to have to go, because he needs to go patrolling that evening. Which he can, of course, do from the console.
Chelsea bids him a murmured goodbye and leaves him be.
And he'll order some food and man the console and eat the food while manning the console and making a Glam-copy patrol with Silica.
His shoulderbot sits on his shoulder.
"Hi, love."
"Hi. Have a good day?"
"Yeah, I needed that."
"Good." The bot nuzzles up to his cheek and settles down on his shoulder.
Instead, he asks, "How about you?"
"Lot of fugue. Bot is now authorized to moderate more sections of the forum."
"Oh, that's nice, what changed?"
"It's just got more proof of concept under its belt now."
"Fair enough."
"Do you want bot takeout or did you fill up wandering around all day?"
"I already got some takeout. You could join me if you want. Or I could join you, if you project what a copy me's seeing so that I can man the console remotely."
"I'll come to you." She does, and does the eating with her helmet slightly flipped up thing.
...he doesn't really feel the need to fill this silence with anything. Which is somewhat strange. But oh well. They'll eat in companionable silence, he guesses.
"You're all quiet."
"Hmm? Yeah, guess I don't really have much to talk about."
"'kay."
(Remotely.)
(...he needs to think. But for some reason he needs to do that without Bella right there. And that's one of the things he needs to think about.)
(Just what's going on in his head?)
Bella obliviously continues being right there. Inconsiderate.
(Is it even reasonable of him to expect her to notice? I mean sure they've been dating a while but perhaps it's not really obvious on his face that he wants to be left alone, and that would be rude probably, making faces.)
She finishes her food and clicks her helmet back down and leans back in her chair. She's probably browsing the internet in her helmet or something.
(Good thing Silica's one of the quiet ones, she doesn't really demand much attention while patrolling.)
"Whoa," says Lorica, "Hatchet Face died."
That startles him right back into wakefulness. "What, really? How? Did he spend even two months with the Nine?"
"Just shy. Apparently he was separated from them and some random Midwest townful of unpowered people mobbed him. His power wasn't really in play considering, but there were still casualties. They got him though. They suspect cape involvement but can't figure out who, they didn't know there was one there."
"Unpowered people? Didn't he have, like, super strength and super endurance? I guess if there were enough people..."
"It was pretty much the entire town. Also some of them had guns."
"And were the rest of the Nine not, like, around?"
"I mean, if I were them I wouldn't hang out in his range," Lorica points out, "I'd give him a phone."
"Yeah, sure, but—well, I guess maybe they were having one of their 'let's have fun slaughtering a small town' breaks..."
"Article doesn't say what he was doing there, I don't think they know."
"Ugh. But, well, Midwest... Is it bad I'm kinda relieved? Both that he's dead and that he was killed so far from here. The Nine don't ride planes."
"I don't think it's bad to be relieved."
"But it's also kinda unnerving, like, someone actually killed one of them, and it's not like most of them even last much longer than that anyway, but there's usually token retaliation. I don't suppose the town was completely slaughtered after that?"
"It wasn't, but they have a team standing by in case."
And paying attention to the patrol. He looks at the screen again.
"Townies are being weirdly cagey. Suspected Master involvement but they don't know the details."
"...a master who can control an entire town? Yikes."
"What's really weird is the town looks pretty normal? It's not like Ellisburg or something. It's just a town. They just all up and killed Hatchet Face and won't say why."
"Uh, are any thinkers on the case?"
"Presumably, doesn't say."
"Could be the master's still in the actual town controlling them." Pause. "The alternative's somewhat horrifying."
"Ayep."
"Two alternatives, even."
"- mm?"
"The master may have either left or been killed. It wouldn't be the first time a power keeps acting beyond its original host's grave, like Butcher's."
"Not a high-percentage option, but, true."
"Or maybe the master could've joined the Nine. That'd explain how come they didn't butcher the town."
"Could be that too."
He sighs, and turns his attention back to the screen.
"Whoever they were they did technically kill a standing member, that's the kinda thing that gets attention."
"Yeah, but that doesn't really help narrow down which of the hypotheses is true."
"Not a bit."
"Especially since they have several times in the past actually recruited people who killed their members. They might as well be renamed 'Jack and pals' for how constant their members are."
"There certainly aren't consistently nine of them. And they don't have a house, either."
"There are seldom seven of them. If we assume Hatchet Face didn't get replaced they're seven right now."
"Recruitment trip upcoming. Grand."
"Not necessarily, Jack doesn't consistently run recruitment trips unless they're below six members. When he has more than that there isn't much of a pattern in how long he waits for them."
"Fair enough, you're the one who's been reading up."
"If they do end up retaliating for the Siberian thing—and I'm not sure whether to be heartened or disheartened that they haven't yet, it's been almost a month—it would also be just like Jack to hold a recruiting trip."
"Here?"
"If he figures me out," he sighs, "it's a likely target, yes."
"You're probably a very appealing power for them, you know."
"...yeah."
(Somehow this isn't comforting at all.)
He squirms a bit.
She drops her arm.
"This only means their visit was inevitable, anyway," he says, trying to act normal.
Isn't acting normal so hard?
It is, so he can just watch the screens and patrol while he talks. Not abnormal to do that, is it, he's Doing His Duty.
"Yeah, bot would've drawn my attention if that were happening."
(Still looking at the screen though.)
"Nobody's speculated that I could do self-replicators either."
"Well, that's probably 'cause self-replicators are coded villainous and you're an upstanding hero. ...and I suppose that could apply to my making a Siberian, too."
"You think?"
"Do I have an upstanding hero image? I'm not sure how to feel about that."
"Nah, you used to be a rogue, you have an eternally tarnished reputation."
"Darn straight."
She pats him on the knee.
"But then I'm right back to feeling miffed that they haven't supposed I could Siberian stuff. Except I really shouldn't so I'll figure out how to stop."
"Good."
"Although I mean, it'd help if people knew it was me and then came to expect awesomeness from me and then I'd be more effective which was the goal from the start..."
"Well, that's between you and PR and your reservations about the S9."
"Yeah no if people don't know that I'm specifically the origin of the hypothetical Siberian I'm okay with that."
"Good."
He turns back to the screen once more.
Companionable silence till her dad takes her home for the night.
And then he can return to his room to think and dissect his feelings. So, to start with the obvious: he loves Bella. And the thing that changed today was that he met Chelsea.
...well when he puts it like that it becomes pretty obvious, doesn't it?
So obvious!
Yeah. Okay, good. He's somewhat pacified, and will shower and sleep and when he wakes up he will go check if Bella is in yet.
Yup, there she is in her workshop munching a scone.
"G'morning, love."
"Morning, how goes?"
"Mmm, alright, and you?"
"Situation normal."
...he looks a bit anxious.
"You okay?"
"Um, yeah, but. I kinda wanted to talk about a thing."
"Sure, what's up?"
"Um. Uh." ...okay this is kinda hard to actually, like, say out loud.
"You're sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay, it's just—awkward and—Okay, so, before anything, you know that I love you, right?"
"So I've been told. What happened?"
"Uh. Yesterday, on my walk, I met a tourist in a shop and played the tour guide and I kinda have a crush on her and I wanted to know how you felt about, um, nonmonogamy."
"Nnnnot super great to be honest - why didn't you mention this last night -?"
"Because I had just come from my walk and had to patrol and didn't have time to actually sort out what I was feeling and I hadn't even realized I was feeling anything that needed sorting out until I saw you and and then I needed some time alone to do that and then I did."
"Well - how I feel about nonmonogamy is 'not super great'. Is that a problem?"
"Um, it's a problem in that I still do have a crush on Chelsea but, like, I also love you a lot, you're the most important thing in my life, and I'm not gonna break up with you over it. And, uh, I hope this doesn't—I mean, I didn't mean to upset you. If I did."
"Little bit."
"I'm sorry," he sighs. "I mean... I still prefer having told you to not having told you, I want you to know the things I'm feeling and thinking and such, and you are the most important thing to me. But I'm sorry these things upset you."
"Yeah, I mean, I don't wish you hadn't told me, just..."
"Penny for your thoughts about what I told you?"
"...Vague concern about compatibility and stuff? - I want to be enough."
"Oh. Oh, love, you—" he floats forward, then stops himself. "You're everything. You're my everything. I'm—it's not how I work? Like, it's not like there's anything missing here, it's just..." He pauses, trying to think on how to best put this into words.
She tilts her head, waits.
He spends a few seconds with his brows furrowed, then starts, tentatively: "I'm a, a people person, right? And, and I like my friends, the Wards, I would never say they're not sufficient, but I wouldn't—dislike making new friends?" He has his stride, now. "And it wouldn't make my current ones less important, and I'd be perfectly happy if I never made new friends either because it's not a matter of, of enough. It's not a matter of quantity, the place each of them occupies in my heart is unique and it doesn't, like, fill some internal gauge of friendness or something. And there's not a gauge of girlfriendness, either, you're you and nothing can replace you and we've been together for over five months and I still feel like shouting 'Lorica is my girlfriend' from the rooftops."
"I don't mean so much quantity as - fit? Complementaryness?"
His turn to tilt his head. "What do you mean?"
"Like... at some point wouldn't you have enough friends? Maybe it'd take a lot of them for you, but you only have so much time and energy. And then you'd - well, I'd, anyway - want to make sure that as long as I was so spoiled for choice I allocated the time and energy sensibly... and for me 'enough boyfriend' is one, and if 'enough girlfriend' for you is not one, or is not one of me..."
(He tells himself, pretty sure that it is true.)
"Maybe it's an extrovert thing or something," she says.
"Or maybe it's a me thing. I think most extroverts would probably not consider suggesting nonmonogamy to their girlfriends as the solution to getting a new crush."
"- what's it feel like if not, missing something she'd fill in...?"
"It's... uh... just... she's a nice person that I like and would maybe like to kiss? It's not a need, you're a nice person that I love and definitely thoroughly enjoy kissing, plus all the stuff I love specifically about you that she does not have and all the things I've learned about you over the past year that I couldn't possibly have learned about her in one day. It's... I'm trying to think of an analogy but all of them fail one way or another."
"Huh."
"...okay maybe I have an analogy. Imagine you're reading a series of books, and you really like it. And then you hear about this other series of books that looks maybe interesting. You could go read it, or you could not read it, but you still have the one and it's very nice and not having read the other doesn't make the one any less enjoyable, but reading the other also doesn't make the one any less enjoyable, they're just different book series and there's nothing missing if you don't decide to go read the second but the only thing that changes if you do is your time availability to read them."
"I do in fact feel like I'm missing out if for some reason I cannot read an interesting-sounding book, though."
"Oh. Um. Okay then I don't have any metaphors."
"You don't? Feel like you're missing out if you hear about a book and it hasn't, like, been translated into English or the store is sold out or for mysterious reasons your existing book collection will vanish if you go read it?"
"Not really? I just feel like, oh, that's a shame, back to the rest of my life without that one specific thing. I... there are lots of books and things and experiences and people and places in the world, in all worlds and universes, I'm missing out on the vast majority of them all the time, and the fact that something's been brought to my attention but it turns out I can't have it anyway doesn't make me want it noticeably more than I already did."
"Well," she says, "yeah, there's lots of stuff, which is why you need to prioritize and become immortal, but still."
"Well, yeah. But lots of those things are mutually exclusive anyway, and even being immortal most of those things are still going to be beyond my reach."
"And I don't want to read every book I hear about, but if I do..."
"If you do...?"
"- then I'm annoyed if I can't for some reason."
"Yeah, I'm not," he shrugs. "Past a certain—baseline, I guess, my desires and ambitions are more the prosocial kind than anything to do with me having or experiencing things."
"Okay."
"I love you."
"I love you too."
"...also uh, do you object to my hanging out with Chelsea just as friends?"
"If you're sure you can keep it that way, no I don't."
"Okay. Thank you. And we'll probably not hang out that much, she's just a tourist anyway."
"Okay."
"So, anyway, any plans for today?"
"Nothing special. Although I'm toying with the idea of building a duplicate of myself-in-armor that wouldn't rely on you for its existence, now that people have caught on to what we're doing."
"Ah, yeah, that's actually a pretty good idea!"
"It'll keep me occupied."
"How long d'you expect it to take?"
"Week or two, probably."
He nods. "I'm not sure it'll change a whole lot, though, it's not like people knowing I'm responsible for copy-you changes much about their strategies."
"Yeah, I'm not completely sold on the idea, just crossed my mind."
"But on the other hand I am legitimately limited by how much attention I can pay to things and how much stuff I can have conjured, so it might be a good idea anyway."
"Yeah, but I'm not sure if that's a good reason to have a Lorica instead of just another standard bot chassis which is easier and cheaper to make and maintain."
"True. You know, the other day I was trying to think about names for the bot, and Bot Only Talks To Lorica came up and it's a terrible name not to mention untrue but B.O.T.T.L."
"That is in fact a terrible name, congratulations on your discernment."
"It'd be funny! And I think acronym names are the way to go. I've been trying to find one for B.O.T. with no success."
"I don't really like acronym names, I mean, I get the punny appeal but I don't want to name my bot based on it."
"Oh. No acronym names, then. Hmm..."
"Maybe unless there's one that would work great even if it weren't also an acronym."
"Well it's already hard to get one of those..."
"Yeah, acronymhood just isn't a deciding factor either way."
"Yeah," he sighs. "We already went through a lot of mythological figures, too. Are there any languages or perhaps stories or characters you particularly like?"
"Well, 'Lorica' is Latin, but it's unusually pretty Latin. Greek's nice too. I like the kind of thing they make you read in English class, and speculative fiction sometimes."
"Do you have preferences about, like, meaning or significance? Or is it just aesthetics?"
"If you came up with a sufficiently pretty nonsense word I could go with that but I don't want it to mean something silly or irrelevant."
"Okay, so maybe characters from stories that somehow resonate with you and slash or the bot, bonus points if in Greek?"
"Maybe."
"I'll see if I can find something."
"Thanks."
"So, while you decide on whether you'll do another you, any other projects?"
"Trying to make the comms more robust against tampering. They don't have to hold up against Behemoth in particular anymore but the fact that they didn't irks me on a professional level."
"Well, I think he was sort of an exception to these kind of rules? Endbringers in general are."
"Yeah, but that's their stress test use case and I want them reliable."
"He was a general dynakinetic—and something else, even, he could manipulate gravity there in the end—and he was holding back, I'm not sure there's any way to even in principle deal with that."
"I'm thinking making the comms aware of their own functionality so they can call in a distress and location before going offline and then a bot can deliver a replacement or send rescue."
"Are they unaware of their functionality right now? What do they think they are, however that verb applies to nonsapient programs?"
"They're not wholly unaware, but they don't have a priority of noticing small malfunctions that may presage complete breakage, and if I can get them fast enough noticing that sort of thing will be worthwhile."
"How will they tell if it's a real breakage instead of just a bunch of small malfunctions?"
"...Tinker bullshit?"
He laughs. "Fair enough."
"Sorry, it's just really hard to explain."
"Yeah, I know, don't worry. Bit frustrating, but what can you do."
"My tinker specialty is not 'explicability'."
"Pretty sure that'd be a contradiction in terms."
"Eh, I dunno, there's all kinds of weird specialties. That'd be a really weird one though."
"I think a tinker with that specialty is called a scientist."
"Bah."
He laughs. "Although maybe that's being too generous about the explanatory abilities of most scientists."
"Yeah, you ever try to read academic journals, they're awful."
"Yeah, I actually like reading them. But I'm nerdier than your average—person."
"I am too, but I get very frustrated by people who know things and don't learn to communicate."
"Mmhm. But then again, 'tinker bullshit.'"
"Yeah, that one's not my fault."
"I know. I was actually reading a paper about parahumans a couple of days ago."
"Oh?"
"Some people writing about hypotheses on how exactly the corona pollentia generates and controls powers."
"Anything good?"
"It was a sort of review with a couple new ideas. They raised the possibility that powers don't actually break conservation of energy, they just borrow energy from... elsewhere. Other universes."
"Huh. That doesn't explain the computationally intensive ones really..."
"If these alternate universes are like Everett's, there is an infinite number of them that are actually computing everything that can be computed. Or that's the authors' argument."
"That's a Library of Babel problem, though, you have to find the one making the right computation and that's nearly equivalent to actually making it."
"Yup, they raised that as an objection to that hypothesis, and suggested the possibility that there's an intelligent agent running the calculations elsewhere instead, with massively parallel computers in other dimensions."
"Buck-passing," she objects.
He grins. "I love you."
"Love you too."
"I didn't read the whole review, but they did some interesting math on the requirements. Like, it wasn't just wild guessing, they were trying to come up with reasonable estimates for stuff that'd need to be true for each hypothesis to make sense."
"Fair enough."
"Of course our current observations don't rule any of the hypotheses out according to their math."
"Yeah."
"I could email it to you."
"Sure, although I will totally have the bot digest it for me so I don't have to pick through jargon."
"'Course." Copy: is conjured. "Can you go do that?" The copy nods and goes.
"Handy."
"Isn't it just? I love my power."
"We have very lovely utility powers, we two."
"Yes, we do. Best couple."
"Most utilitarian."
"Yes, that is one of the ways in which we're the best couple."
"What else?"
"D'you want me to make you a list? We're both smart, pragmatic, altruistic, ambitious, have similar tastes, similar personalities but not so much that it gets boring, typically good at dealing with our thoughts and emotions..."
She giggles.
The bot receives copy's email.
The bot observes, "This paper would not have been published if Behemoth had made more progress in Pittsburgh."
"...huh. I don't wanna read into that."
"Why not?" asks Lorica.
"I mean, Behemoth was apparently making for the universities, but it's very easy to think that gives their papers some significance when it might not be the case."
"Yeah, I guess. It's not evidence against and it's not nothing, though."
"Yeah. But for all we know Behemoth was going for something else entirely or, I dunno, so. It's very weak evidence."
"Sure, that I'll give you."
"But still... Interesting."
"It is."
"I think I'm gonna reread it and pay some more attention just in case, though."
"Sounds like a plan."
His copy is back! "Can you bring me my phone?" And back to his room the copy goes.
"What?"
"I dunno, it just seems a little silly to use your basically generically capable copy to fetch you your phone, but I send bots for takeout so I can't talk."
He giggles. "Not to mention that I am, in fact, a very silly person."
"It's true, you are!"
"Would it be better if I sent bot-lookalikes instead of me-lookalikes to fetch me things?"
"Not really. I dunno how often people mistake your copies for you in the hallway."
"Well, nowadays if they want to talk to me they ask if it's the real me or not."
"Makes sense."
"It was kinda funny at first, though."
"I bet you were tempted to pretend to be a copy."
"Tempted?"
"Oh, you actually did it?"
"Coupla times."
"How'd that go?"
"Was kinda funny to interact with people who thought I wasn't sentient. People don't really know what to do with a copy."
"Did you fess up?"
"Eventually. Miss Militia thought it was cute and Rewind punched me. Dauntless just laughed."
"In case you were wondering, don't pull that on me."
"Haven't pulled that on anyone in months, wasn't planning on doing that to you, and anyway am pretty sure you'd be able to tell."
"We never did reverse the Turing test. Although if I really didn't know first thing I'd squint."
Back the copy is, with the phone!
"A bit? How many times did you do this to her?"
"Um. Like four. Maybe."
"Sadde!"
"What!"
"That's not nice."
"Well, she did get her revenge on me a couple of times, I'd say she and I are even."
"What'd she do?"
"Rewind me a few times. ...I don't know how many, seeing as I don't remember what happened then."
Snort.
"Dauntless doesn't treat my copies any differently than me, but Echo insists on trying to figure it out without squinting. I never did it to your dad."
"I don't think he'd think it was very funny."
"I don't, either. I wouldn't have done it to the others if I didn't think they wouldn't mind much."
"You must be more confident in your guesses about what people will tend to mind than I usually am."
"I'm... pretty confident in my guesses about people in general, yes."
"What would you do if somebody was upset about it?"
"Apologize and not do it again."
"Fair enough."
"But I correctly predicted neither your father nor you would appreciate it, and that Echo would enjoy the challenge of trying to figure me out, so I'm happy with my results."
"Even though it got you rewound."
"It was funny!"
Snort.
"If you don't want to get burned don't play with fire, or something?"
"I don't know, I could argue that a harmless prank didn't warrant the memory loss etcetera but you did it four times, so that argument sort of loses traction."
"And losing ten minutes of memory when doing nothing of particular gravity is pretty harmless, too, I think."
"It'd piss me way off if I weren't immune."
"If anyone got a power that fits their personality it's you. At least that part of it."
"Yes."
"I'm... I suppose I see where you're coming from, but I don't feel that possessive of all of my thoughts?" he tries.
"Okay," she says, "but why not?"
"Well... why do you?"
"My thoughts are me. If they're tampered with then I'm shedding bits of myself."
"Well, I see my, uh, overarching thoughts and persistent personality traits as me, but most of the day-to-day stuff is noise? I mean sure it's noise that eventually adds up to and is a consequence of the overarching stuff, but..."
"And if something's changed or missing it will add up wrong."
"It will add up differently, from that point on, to what it would've added up to at the end, but for one it's ten minutes which is, like, a rounding error—I would be much more upset over losing a day, for instance—but I don't really see any of the potential future mes as meer than the one I will actually end up being."
"I don't want to be a Swiss cheese of myself."
"Hmm, I don't have the same relationship with what I consider to be my self that you do, I think."
"So what are you to yourself?"
"I mean, I don't see, uh... my future self and my current self as that... fixed? My being rewound ten minutes here and there only means I will turn out to be a different self than I would have been if I had not been rewound, but like, one, that other self is not really meaningfully less me than the other would've been, and two, it's not that different than what self I would or would not be because of any other specific happenstances."
"I feel very strongly that I should be the only force directly acting on my thoughts."
"...define directly?"
"Like... sense data and me. And the sense data should be accurate or at least communicative."
"Well, but like, there are lots of layers of indirect manipulation going on that you don't directly affect or notice or whatever, even without taking powers into account, and implicit biases and subconscious stuff."
"Yes," she says, "and it's my job to manage that."
"But it's impossible to."
"I make a solid try. I wish I had an eidetic memory though."
"Wow, that would be awesome."
"I know, right?"
"It wouldn't really fix the whole problem, though, 'cause it's not not-remembering that's the problem with implicit biases and subtle manipulation."
"It's not the whole problem, admittedly."
"Anyway, point is, uh, I dunno, I don't really see myself and my actions as that discontinuous with everything and everyone else and don't personally dislike being influenced by other things and people."
"I noticed."
"You are making that face again, aren't you."
"Who, me?"
"Yyyeeeesss yoooou!"
"I might be."
"You totally are. We've been dating for five months, I know when you're making faces at me."
"Yeah, I am."
"Well I think you should make faces at me where I can see them."
"Well then maybe we should go somewhere else."
"Oh? That sounded like you had an idea."
"There are so very, very many places in the world, where we could theoretically go." She gets up and heads out of her workshop. "But I bet you can guess."
He starts floating after her, grinning. "I possibly could, but if you'd tell me what exactly you wanted to do in that place I might have a better guess."
"Make faces at you, obviously."
"Ah, well, but you could've made faces at me in your workshop."
"Maybe I couldn't have. How would you know?"
"'Cause you have done it before!"
"I could have suffered sudden workshop-related face-making deficiency syndrome."
"Of course, silly me, why didn't I consider this hypothesis."
"Narrowness of thought," she diagnoses, and she lets herself into his room.
"Thankfully you're here to correct this terrible fault of mine." He floats after her and conjures a short-lived copy to close the door.
And she takes her helmet off and kisses him.
(Eeeeee kissing!)
Eee!
Can he persuade her to maybe remove the armor?
Yes. Off it comes.
...caaaaan he persuade her to remove any more pieces of clothing? Her shirt, perhaps? He will, of course, do the same.
Shirts can come off. Mm, shirtless boyfriend.
Boyfriend. Sadde is a boy today. As sh—he was saying, Bella can have her shirtless boyfriend any way she wants him!
Oh good! She wants him kissed. That is how she seems to be aiming to have him.
(The squirming is completely and 100% caused by said kisses. Of course.)
"You okay?"
...except for the part where she's gonna be using a boy's primary sexual characteristics. And yes lots of trans people are not that bothered by it but she is.
(She wonders if she'd be bothered if she hadn't ever triggered and hadn't gotten the ability to switch like she can.)
(...how can she even switch like that. It's the one part of her power that isn't strictly reliant on conjuring things. Um.)
(Um.)
"Um."
"What's wrong?"
"...gender dysphoria," she grudgingly admits.
"Oh." She ruffles Sadde's hair. "Rain check?"
"Yeah," she sighs, and does not switch because shirtless. "You're great, you know. I love you."
(So frustrating. Why does she have to be straight?)
She conjures a shirt and-
—switches. "I'm sorry about it."
"It's okay." Scritch. Back on goes the armor.
Sigh. "Anyway, that's why I don't mind it much if Rewind rewinds me."
"All right."
"Not the gender thing, I mean, the whole thing we were talking about before I got distracted by how seductive you are."
"Yeah, I figured."
"The solution is of course to become post-human immortal mind uploads with access to our source code and backups and stuff."
"Sounds like a plan. And then ruling the world as a software Tinker will be much easier."
"...hmm, I wonder if we'd keep our powers upon being uploaded, though."
"...Good question."
"We'll probably need to figure out a lot more about how powers connect to people before getting there, I guess."
"Yeah. I wouldn't like to go without mine."
"I... don't think I'd mind losing mine all that much if it was a necessary part of becoming an emulation?"
"Well, yours is kind of different, if we're assuming the sim quality is any good you could replace most of its effects. Mine's about how I think and can think and cannot be made to think."
"But having full access to and edit rights for your source code would obviate the need, wouldn't it?"
"In principle, if we assume nobody can hack me. Not for my tinker power."
"The hacking problem would still be there regardless of your thinker power, though, and if you were an em you might be able to actually develop your tinker knowledge in a way that's not nebulous sourceless ideas."
"Maybe. We don't know how tinker bullshit actually works well enough to guess if that would cut it."
"Well, whatever it is you're doing is actually doable, so it should be possible to figure it out..."
"It's been speculated that tinkers are actually not tinkers, that we have some kind of other power holding stuff together."
"...what, like, teekay holding their machines together or something?"
"Nothing that obvious but that's the idea. Some low-key Shaker-sorta power."
"Well, but, it'd have to be really long range, wouldn't it? ...although I suppose my power's pretty long range, too."
"Or it persists on the tinkered thing - plenty of capes can affect objects and then be arbitrarily far away from the objects."
"Persists but wears off, under that hypothesis. I... suppose it has some merit, but then how does software tinkering even work? What is the power focusing on?"
"No clue. I'm not relying on rand seeds or anything."
"Well you might as well be, given the mysteriousness of the source of the knowledge."
"It's just not obvious that there's any nondeterministic behavior in the software for a power to sneak in to help with."
"There could be unforeseen side effects with the particular implementation of your language? And it's not unthinkable that your power might be subtly influencing your mind from the inside and making you neglect to notice this kind of thing."
"That's possible, although it'd have to be making the bot not notice too."
"If it's something in the compilation part it might not even have a way of noticing."
"It can inspect its own code."
"Right but what I mean is, the part where the machine translates code into instructions. You invented the language, right? If the problem is lower level than the code itself..."
"Oh, yeah, if I'm screwing around with the physical circuits or something."
"So, like, maybe when you think that one line of code is supposed to set a zero here and a one there it actually also sets a one somewhere else you weren't paying attention to and then over time it degrades or something."
"Maybe. Which just makes bot-written code even more of a hack than it was."
"And might mean self-sustained bot chains won't ever work, if this sort of things scales."
"Maybe. I'll see."
"Can you? I mean, do you have an idea of what your hardware stuff's supposed to look like during operation?"
"...I mean, I'm going to try it, when I graduate."
"Right but I mean, can you find a way to verify that your power isn't doing stuff without telling you?"
"Not without further uses of power to create sensors and stuff, and obviously if it's going to great lengths to hide itself that won't help."
"Yeah. Maybe some other tinker could do it?"
"Unless the powers are all in cahoots."
"...not an easy hypothesis to disprove."
"Yeah."
"Powers could stand to be less opaque," she sighs.
"It'd be nice."
"Maybe enough non-tinker scientists could check every step of the way and figure it out...?"
"Be a big project."
"It would, and might not even work, if historical evidence is anything to go by."
"Yep."
"Maybe research into stuff like what that paper looks into will help figure it out," she says, getting her phone from her pocket.
"Maybe. Seems unlikely we'll know for sure very soon though."
"Yeah," she shrugs, "but I'll probably keep up with the cutting edge research in the area, probably. I might've gone that way if I hadn't triggered, to be honest."
"I could see that."
"Or something to do with people, but I'm not sure what I could do that'd have been as useful."
"What kind of 'with people' do you mean, here, are we talking like teaching or like therapy or like sales?"
"Yes."
"These are very different fields."
"I know, I just mean I don't know what kind of role I'd like, and I might have just gone on to research instead and have people as a hobby."
"People as a hobby," snorts Lorica.
"The biggest downside to this alternate universe is of course that I never got to meet you."
"Oh, maybe I could have rescued you from a burning building or something."
"Yes, but what are the odds that you'd want to stick around and hang out with me without my kinda forcing my presence on you like I did there at the start?"
"Low, admittedly."
"I must've been quite annoying to you, then."
"In an entertaining kind of way."
"Entertainingly annoying, really? How's that?"
"It was very you."
"Yeah, I suppose that's a fair description of me."
"Fits right in with the pranking behavior."
"Yeah. Bet you didn't predict—this. When we met."
"Definitely not."
(...maybe the part where she's straight, a little.)
"Me either."
"What did you think when you met me? Or, what did you think of me when I was a weird rogue?"
"I don't remember much about it, I was reserving judgment..."
"Must've been quite a long period of judgment reservation."
"I'm good at that."
"Really? Have you done it to other people much?"
"Yeah, I just sort of go 'this person is clearly somebody but I don't actually know enough about them to say who, they get default person treatment until further notice'."
"'Default person treatment.'"
"Do you not have a default person treatment?"
"I suppose! I just never gave it a name in my head like that."
"I have to have names for more things to notebook them."
"...notebook them?"
"...have I not told you about this, I have to have done. I write down what I'm thinking? So I can look at it while it is not being a thought and therefore slippery."
"Nnnoooo you've never told me about this! I knew about your bot being an auxiliary memory for you, I don't think I've ever seen you writing anything with your actual hand. A thought and therefore slippery?"
"I can't use the bot all the time, I have school and stuff. Although it is more convenient than a notebook when I have it. Thoughts are easy to forget, working memory has limited capacity, so I write stuff down."
"Well, that's not surprising at all in hindsight, and it kinda makes me want to kiss you but damnable gender dysphoria."
"...Sorry."
She shrugs. "It's not your fault, and I wouldn't trade you for anything." (...now why does that feel like a lie?) "I love you." (That one at least she is quite certain is true.)
"Love you too."
"Did you write about me on your notebooks?" she wonders.
"Yeah, of course."
"I'm weirdly pleased about this even though it occurs to me you probably write about everyone."
"I mean, I spend more time thinking about you than most people."
"Well, yeah, but like you said, thoughts are slippery, and it feels all warm and fuzzy that there's physical evidence to them somewhere."
"Yes, there is."
"So I will never fall into the abyss of forgetfulness, left to rot and be picked at by the vultures of memory."
"What an odd mental image."
She giggles. "Somewhat, yes."
"But yeah, ciphered notebooks, computer records."
"Of course you cipher your notebooks."
"Started when I found out who Dad was."
"Ah, yeah, makes sense. Is it a constant cipher?"
"I do not make a habit of sharing my cipher's traits. With anyone, ever."
"...right, sorry."
"It's okay."
...and she has quite run out of things to say, and is feeling awkward, and why is she feeling awkward, it shouldn't feel awkward to not have things to say sometimes, it almost never does.
Lorica ruffles her hair. "I think I'll go get some work done."
"And I'll read stuff," she says, waving her phone.
Off goes Lorica.
—texts Chelsea. 'Morning.
Good morning!
How're you today?
I'm okay, kind of at a loose end though. You?
I'm alright, too. Why loose end?
Oh, I was going to go to a museum with somebody but he canceled.
(Should she go with Chelsea instead...? She'd have to return to boy shape and do something less obviously supernatural than the shapeshifting...)
The boat museum you recommended.
Cool. Who were you going with?
A friend who moved away a long time ago but it turned out he was here; but he can't make it and he's going out of town...
She presses send, but her thumbs hover over the keyboard for a bit...
What say you we go together? she sends immediately after.
I'd love to - You're not busy?
I'll be a bit busy starting an hour from now for a couple of hours, but after that I'm free all afternoon and evening.
I can shuffle some things around, I'd love to see you.
Awesome! The thing I have might overrun (less than an hour for sure) though so I'll text you?
I'll be waiting.
So she grabs her phone and resumes reading the paper from earlier, then suits up and goes patrolling, hovering after Miss Militia on her bike. Patrol is uneventful and ends roughly when expected, but instead of returning to the PHQ with Miss Militia Sadde lands somewhere unobserved and texts Chelsea.
Hello again!
Hi! How was your morning?
It was fine, not very interesting, how about yours?
Pretty good. Saw a movie and wandered around town.
Well I'm free now, so how about we meet up and you tell me all about it in person?
Sure! Where should I find you?
The museum?
"Oh, look at you, you're so pretty!"
"Thank you!" she beams. She does in fact not look exactly like she could because it still should look like this could be the result of makeup and clothes, but she's happy Chelsea likes the look.
Chelsea sure does seem to like the look, but she doesn't go into any more detail on it, probably for reasons. Into the boat museum they go.
The boat museum: has boats! And also a history lesson on Brockton Bay, from colonization to the modern day, explaining its history as a port of trade, its relevance for the U.S. economy, the boom in the second half of the twentieth century, being overtaken by villains in the nineties, the closing of the ferry, and the arrival of the heroes. Sadde talks excitedly about everything but especially the parts involving capes, expanding upon the audio guide's descriptions and giving more detail when it's glossed over.
Chelsea is of course wonderful company.
Of course she is! They spend most of their afternoon there, and then it's dinnertime and perhaps they could go eat together...?
Gosh, could they?
Yep! They could! Sadde knows this nice Brazilian barbecue restaurant, if she's up for it.
What fun.
"How long did you say you were planning to stay here?"
"I don't actually have a return ticket right now. I thought I'd see how long there were things to hold me here."
"Oh, cool. I hope we can find enough of them to hold you here for a while."
"Feel free to entice me."
...she's not flirting. She's just... look it makes sense in context!
Chelsea giggles.
They say their goodbyes and Sadde returns to the PHQ, trying not to sigh in happiness/frustration/something too much.