To the traditional — nearly mandatory — dank and dingy alley, beset by the smell of the sea, and of the chinese place down the street.

The alley does have one redeeming quality: it is currently empty, and therefore a good place to come to grips with sudden translocation.

It was empty, and now there is a teenage boy in it. Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, that kind of lanky vibe that denotes a recent final growth spurt, very Italian facial features, dressed in flannel pajamas.

Andrea is currently too panicked to even scream, and when he fully takes in the dingy alleyway, thinks better of screaming because in some places you do not want attention. Like shady alleys in unfamiliar places. Hyperventilating seems a much safer way to panic.

It didn’t feel like they were drugged and brought here, there was no fade to black, no gap in memories. Just suddenly from one moment to the next they were in one place, and now are in another. It’s jarring and scary and it takes a while before the mental error messages slow down enough for them to think.

Suddenly going from being comfy in a warm bed at home where they are safe to being in a much colder strange alleyway is a perfectly normal thing to be freaked out about, and it takes them a while to get their breathing under control again.

Being exposed and alone in an spooky unfamiliar alley in just pajamas seems not safe. He will find a doorway to hide in for at least a little cover while he calms down. Maybe poke his head out the alley to see if the street looks safer.

Does he want to be good at blending in to his surroundings? Or maybe have an intuitive sense of whether areas are dangerous?

The questions come as a faint sensation on the edge of his mind, along with a feeling that neither accepting nor rejecting the offers will harm him. They're just ... options, for things that he could do now that he wasn't able to do before.

Nobody comes into the alley to see his pajama-clad form.

The cold, on the other hand, does start to make itself known as his adrenaline fades. The humid air wicks heat away from him with surprising alacrity.

It’s supposed to be summer, why is it so bloody cold! Also why can he smell the sea, he’s familiar with the smell of the ocean from vacations. Andrea’s poor toes feel cold even when the AC is on, much less in cold coastal air, so they feel freezing already. He regrets being too macho to buy slippers.

Where the fuck even is he?

The new sensations are very obvious to someone who is always constantly self policing his thoughts and feelings as a tool against intrusive depressive thoughts.

What the fuck are these? Normally he would be a bit more paranoid about unfamiliar feelings but a danger sense sounds very useful and good right now, because the adrenaline from the earlier panic is still very much there and is influencing his thoughts. He’s noticed the adrenaline is doing that, but just because he knows he normally would think differently that doesn’t actually change how he’s feeling right now about wanting danger sense.

When he decides that the danger sense sounds useful, a dim spark blooms somewhere within him. And now it is obvious that this alleyway is slightly more dangerous than the street, but the street is still pretty dangerous. The inside of the touristy café diagonally across the street is noticeably safer.

Does he want to be able to emit heat? Or maybe be more resistant to cold?

Okay wow, entirely new senses are wild. Andrea probably has actual brain damage because this is so far beyond what is possible for a dream. Not that he ever really considered this being a dream likely, he never feels emotions or physical sensations very strongly in dreams, and his feet are SO COLD.

Cafe! That’ll have normal and probably safe people, and a phone. Gosh the idea of going inside where people will see him while dressed in pajamas is anxiety inducing. The danger sense is making the choice between embarrassment and safety pretty easy though.

Maybe he wont mess with weird brain stuff right this second, the danger sense is weird enough.

Time to scoot towards the cafe, being very careful where he puts his bare feet, the street itself looks poorly maintained and loose road gravel is pointy!

Andrea notices the parked cars are facing the wrong way as he walks, theres only like 3 countries or something that drive on the wrong side of the road. Based on the vibes, the english signage, and the cold… Is he in America? How the fuck did he get in America? Okay, save that anxiety for when they are indoors in the cafe.

The bell on the door chimes as he opens it, a gust of warm air blowing past him. The server behind the counter doesn't look up, because she's counting pumps of syrup. The customer waiting for his excessively sugary drink does, and then double-takes when he sees what Andrea is wearing.

The little tables along the left-hand side of the shop are slightly safer than the area near the counter. The area by the door and window are slightly less safe.

"Hey kid, are you alright?" he asks, in a heavy Bostonian accent, which may or may not be one Andrea recognizes.

That prompts the barista to look up, but she doesn't say anything for the moment, although her eyes are wary.

Scoot over to the tables, just in case.

Andrea did some high school in the Midwest, the American accent is infectious, like a cancer, his accent parses as mostly American with a hint of Aussie.

Even in a dangerous and scary situation, speaking to strangers still somehow manages to make him feel anxious. What the fuck, brain, cut that out.

”Is… is this America? I uhhh… I don’t know how I got here, and it’s way colder than than its supposed to be, and the cars…” He’s getting a little rambly, but what the fuck is he supposed to say in a situation like this!

Oh! Well, that's a different thing entirely, isn't it.

The barista moves over to an old corded landline phone near the back wall of the store and dials a short number before beginning to speak softly into the handset.

The man with the bad taste in coffee leans against the counter, rather than approach Andrea when he's so visibly twitchy.

"Yup, this is America all right," he agrees. "Brockton Bay, on the East coast. Where are you from, kid?"

Oh America, what the fuck, how did he get to America? Maybe now is a better and safer place to have that panic attack. Because how could he go from in bed at home to an entirely different continent with no loss in continuity of consciousness, in the same pair of pajamas! If he was kidnapped he doubts he’d just wake up in a random alley in the same clothes.

Then the next thing the man at the counter says finally parses in Andrea’s mind.

Brockton bay? Like… the definitely not real and fictional city Brockton bay? Like from the story Worm Brockton bay? Doomed to be almost destroyed by horrible alien constructs and superpowered terrorists Brockton bay?

Oh he’s fucked, he’s dead, he might as well die right now. Literal fates worse than death are everywhere in the Worm universe. Maybe he heard wrong? Please, any amount of hope is something to cling to.

He’s trying not to hyperventilate so hard he passes out. “D-did you say Brockton bay?… like.. the city with the PRT in it? Lung? Kaiser? That Brockton bay?” He says in the tiniest most wavering voice. Tears are actively being fought back.

The man gives him a sympathetic look.

"Yup. That's the one," he agrees. "I wouldn't exactly want to visit either, but I had to come up North for a job. Damn plant zombies."

It seems to occur to him that this is probably not very reassuring.

"... but hey, it's alright. I'm sure we can get you back home. The news makes things here look worse than they are, I think."

Yeah, no, home is a universe away. Andrea’s family probably doesn’t even exist in this universe, and it wouldn’t be his family, they’d be strangers to him. Australia on earth Bet isn’t even all that much safer a place to be than here. The Simurgh attacks Canberra right? And then the Golden Morning is going to happen sometime… when? Oh god it could be soon!

He can’t tell the man he comes from a world where this universe is from a work of fiction. But there’s a lie that’s…. Close enough.

”I don’t think I can go home… I-I’m from… from earth Aleph…” That’s close enough to true. He doesn’t even feel too bad about that lie and he really hates lying to people, more than is reasonable.

He’s in Worm where the world is going to end across an entire multiverse, and the city is he is in has multiple doomsday events leading up to that. He is a whole universe away from home, from safety, from his dog. He cares more about never seeing his dog again than his family, he is going to miss Pancake so much, at least until he dies horribly on this deathworld of a setting.

Oh… the hyperventilating is getting rather bad, his vision is swimming. Andrea is going to collapse against the wall. He passes out.

When he comes to, it's to a cool cloth on his forehead and the sound of coffee percolating.

"... just said that you should stay here."

    "But I've got to get down to —"

"I know! I'm just telling you what the dispatcher said."

... and the sound of a quiet argument between the man and the barista. The shop's "open" sign has been flipped to "closed".

The adrenaline has broken down significantly after passing out, into all its awful byproducts. Andrea feels like warmed over garbage. He’s never had a panic attack so bad he passed out before, and somehow it feels even worse than the aftermath of a regular one. Why do brains have to be so bad, why are hormones like this.

He sits up with a groan. Yep, still in the coffee shop, being in Worm was real. Either that or he has severe brain damage. But it’s like simulation theory, you have to treat the world as if it was real even if it wasn’t. 

“Fuck….” He feels too emotionally worn out to even feel angry about his situation.

Does he want to be better at regaining an emotional equilibrium?

There's a sound like a motorcycle making the legally mandated minimum amount of street noise (for pedestrian safety) coming to a stop and parking itself. And then a chime from the shop bell as a man in blue power armor opens the door.

The area around him is ... strange. Both much safer and much less safe than the rest of the shop, in a complex pattern that continuously shifts with his movements.

He pulls a pale blue cylinder from a hatch on his leg, and waves it around the shop in a sequence of slow sweeping motions, frowning at whatever feedback this action provides him.

Ugh, Armsmaster. Colin. He’s such a prick in canon, and barely better in most fanfic. Armsmaster in canon reads like the kind of autistic who never put any effort into learning how people worked or into learning about themselves, and the result is a very familiar kind of selfish asshole to Andrea. Andrea might be a similar kind of antisocial autist but he at least bothered to learn the basics of humans, to introspect enough that they could at least guess at what behaviours would be harmful before doing them, learned empathy was better than none at all. As socially unaware as Andrea is, Armsmaster’s scenes in the story were enough to make even him cringe, it was like looking back at himself when he was 11 and was basically a sociopath. Even out of pure selfish self interest you should still learn how to not be a dick.

He hopes there’s someone else from the PRT or Protectorate around to talk to. Seriously director Piggot should never let that man interact with people without a handler. He wonders if Armsmaster has fucked things up with Taylor yet, when he loses the Protectorate one of the most powerful capes in the setting to villainy, simply because he couldn’t stop from being a dick to a traumatised kid.

Well, if he’s still Armsmaster, that’s pre Leviathan attack right? Doesn’t he rebrand shortly afterwards? It’s been a long time since Andrea read canon Worm so he is not sure. So he has some years to be alive before the world ends at least.

Andrea is not touching a power that messes with his emotions with a 20 foot pole. Especially a Worm-verse power. Using master powers on himself is a terrible Idea.

Armmaster is probably going to talk to him… and he has a physical reaction based lie detector… You know what? Hey weird mystery feelings offering powers, do you have anything for controlling reactions? Not giving away anything to the lie detector seems very useful right now. His life is screwed enough that he’s willing to poke the new mental stuff as long as its not something that will be fucking with his thoughts. The paranoia is still there, but existential despair is a good enough motivation to help him get over that.

Another spark blooms into being within him in response to his thoughts. Andrea becomes much more aware of the small movements his body is making, and feels as though they should be easy to control, restrain, or exaggerate.

There's also the faint sense that it really is here to help.

Apparently satisfied, Armsmaster returns his tube to his thigh compartment.

"There is no sign of airborne pathogens," he declares to the two adults. "You may wish to get a more thorough screening at the hospital," he adds, with the barely concealed subtext that a second opinion is unnecessary when the first opinion is his.

He walks over toward Andrea and stands looking down at him.

"You're awake," he pronounces.

“Had a bad panic attack when I realised where I was. Never passed out from one before.“ He feels like he has to explain himself. Like passing out was somehow a failure on his part. He at least notices those feelings and knows that’s stupid and he should try to ignore that feeling.

And now Andrea has to police his body as much as he already polices his own mind. Ugh. Okay, he should tone down his reactions in general, he already feels numb anyway, and stick to the truth where possible.

Armsmaster frowns again, his response fractionally delayed.

"You say you're from Earth Aleph?" he questions. "I can detect some residual spatial flux, but it's faint."

The unspoken implication that he doubts Andrea's story is once more painfully loud to anyone with functional social skills.

“I appeared in the alley across the way if that helps, near the dumpster. One moment I was in bed, in Brisbane Australia, where it is summer, and then suddenly here, in the cold, by the sea, apparently in north America. No transition, no split second of something happening, just instant. No blacking out, no gaps in my memories, still in the same pajamas. I’m pretty sure Brockton bay doesn’t even exist on my earth! And Kyushu sure does!” Voice getting a little hysterical as he goes on, and those were all perfectly true statements.

Armsmaster nods.

"I'll examine the alley next. Remain here."

With surprisingly quiet steps for someone wearing power armor, he makes his way back out of the café.

The man scoffs and grabs his coffee from the counter. He glances over at Andrea.

"I have to go, kid. But you're in good hands with the Protectorate," he says.

The shop bell chimes again as he ducks out and makes his way down the street to a red pickup truck.

Andrea really doubts that he would be in good hands, the Protectorate is a mess, even by government agency standards. Not to mention being an arm of the interuniversal secret conspiracy organisation that is Cauldron.

Oh fuck, Cauldron! Contessa! Probably other thinkers that belong to them! He has no idea why Cauldron might be interested in him right now, but they might in the future. Andrea is now in Brockton bay, before Leviathan (maybe), there are things he could change in the canon timeline. He doesn’t currently have any plans to change anything but he probably should right? The canon future sucks, it does prevent a complete genocide of humanity, but there is still a massive apocalypse coming that could maybe be ameliorated right? The sudden terror at the idea of Contessa coming out of nowhere and murdering him just to keep Cauldrons plans stable is intense and overwhelming.

He begs the weird brain feeling (that he still definitely doesn't believe is there to help, of course a passenger would lie about that) for protection against precogs.

Save me from precogs, please save me from precogs. He chants to himself mentally as soon as Armsmaster is out of view. He wishes with a sincerity that surpasses the few times he desperately tried praying to god as a kid during his darkest moments. He has never needed anything as intensely as this. The boogyman was real and she could basically predict the future and just decide to kill you at any time, even other villains at least had to be in geographical proximity with you to kill you, Contessa could find you anywhere. He needs to not be timefucked by precognitives, at least let there be a chance to survive if people want to kill him.

Um.

It wants to be able to do that, but "protection from precogs" is kind of ... big. Can he break it down? Does he want ... to not be perceptible by non-mundane senses? Does he want to be able to jitter randomly? Or be opaque to xrays?

There's a sense that "immune to precogs" is a possibility for him, but it isn't an atomic action that he can just take.

Not perceptible to non mundane senses seems like a lot bigger scope for a power to Andrea than just dont let precognitives predict him? He feels like non mundane covers more stuff than just that. He just doesn't want Contessa to have a path to victory that includes exactly how to kill him. He doesn't want Coil to be able to spam alternate timelines to know exactly how to manipulate him. He probably doesn't even want to come up in Dinah Alcotts number predictions. Does non mundane sense cover whatever predictive software the Passengers use to predict likely futures? There are already capes who defeat thinker powers, hell the Endbringers can do it. Can't he just have the same thing they do? Whatever is stopping the passangers from predicting them, do that please. Being killed by some random accident is not nearly as scary as someone simply knowing everything he will possibly do in advance and leaving him no options other than to just die.

Set up whatever flag in the passenger network thats needed for him not to get timefucked. Or put a thinker precog tailored somebody elses problem field on him. Or at least make the predictions unreliable. He just desperately craves to be free of time fuckery, prophecy is fucked up, It triggers some deep existential fear probably related to determinism, a fear that doesn't even make that much sense when there are certainly worse powers in Worm to be scared of.

Thinker powers in general are less scary (even if still scary) than full on future knowledge of you. Something like Tattletail being able to pull you apart as a person and make very educated guesses about your behaviour is not the same as Contessa knowing in advance every action she needs to take to make sure you die and there being nothing at all you can do about it.

Oh! So he doesn't want to be immune to precogs, he wants to be able to politely ask precogs not to think about him.

'Set a flag on the passenger network' still feels too big. There's a sense that there are multiple steps that go into that. But 'broadcast a message to nearby precogs asking them not to model him' is doable. Does he want that?

Would the precogs know about Andrea due to it? Is it going to be the equivalent of a big flashing sign that goes 'Someone here who doesnt want you thinking about them!'. Would the passengers even care about that message? And that still doesn't save him from death by Contessa because she makes her future knowledge based plans to murder you in another world entirely before she steps through one of the Doormans doorways to kill you. Them having to be nearby doesn't help at all.

When Contessa plans to murder him attempts to get every single step on how to kill him in advance. He wants that power to either to return no results like the endbringers, or at least give her wrong information. If he can't stop it on the passenger end, can he become unpredictable? Can he get a RNG machine equivalent that is so RNG that not even passengers can predict it and take actions based on that? So the precogs at least have to recalculate all the time? Can he get the opposite of the path to Victory and have a power that gives him the steps to take to fuck up precog predictions?

Please, he will take anything as long as he's safe from impossible to beat time fuckery.

He gets a faint sense of confusion and worry. He could get a power for intuitively understanding what messages would or would not draw attention to him?

Yes, he can get a source of true randomness that can't be predicted from outside. No, an 'opposite path to victory' is still too big. But he could get ... a power that lets him tell which actions will have lots of chaotic knock-on effects? Does he want that?

Yes, that! To be the most unpredictable butterfly to the future. Adding impossible to predict effects regularly enough that trying to see his future is not very useful. He probably wouldn't even need to take very big actions. The butterfly effect probably doesn't need all that much in the form of actions to change the future enough to make assasinating him via time fuckery considerably harder. Just needs not to be standing where Contessa predicted the bullet would go before she even pulls her gun. Making her have to aim like a normal person is good enough for her to not be pants wettingly terrifying anymore.

Two sparks bloom to life in his chest in response to his need. They seem to like each other, swirling tightly around each other. They also bring with them a sense of ... fullness, perhaps?

When one spark blooms, another choice opens in his mind: any time he could make a decision, he could also pick 'random', and it would truly be random. When the other spark blooms, he starts getting another source of intuitions along with his danger sense, but these ones are a lot more chaotic and hazy.

Spilling coffee there could have lots of diverse effects. Killing the barista could have lots of effects. Telling Armsmaster that he wants to join the Wards could have lots of effects. Waving his arms does not have many effects. Punching the wall has some effects, but not as many as spilling that coffee.

That's an even weirder feeling than his danger sense. Lets... just... pace around the coffee shop randomly. Probably a good habit to have even against mundane snipers rather than just precog assisted assasins. Armsmaster or whoever else the PRT sends should be back soon anyway.

The Barista gives him a weird look for his erratic movements, but they're not her problem.

Armsmaster returns from across the street, the bell chiming again.

"I can confirm a stronger spatial flux reading across the alley," he announces. "The P.R.T. has a protocol for dimensionally displaced people, although it doesn't see much use. Will you agree to come to the P.R.T. headquarters to process some immigration paperwork?"

This choice will have diverse effects. So will the choice of whether to duck in the next few seconds.

Oh shit! Is this a precog power itself?!?! Andrea ducks.

Armsmaster stares at him for a long moment.

Nothing else appears to happen.

"You may have hit your head when you fell," Armsmaster cautions. He holds up a finger which glows brightly. "Please try to follow the light with your eyes."

Well. Now Andrea feels stupid. That'll teach him to blindly trust weird powers he is only kind of sure are real. It's Worm, he has no reason to doubt powers are real. But he hasn't really got anything from them except feelings and what seems like new senses. He's pretty sure his brain couldn't invent something that feels so... new, but maybe it could.

"I don't think I have a concussion. I just had a sudden feeling of being in danger. Sorry." More technical truths, he will let Armsmaster assume it's a shock or response to the earlier panic attack than a power thing. He follows the light with his eyes anyway just to reassure him.

"Hmm."

He dims his finger.

"You aren't showing signs of a concussion, either. Do you believe it is possible that you reflexively teleported yourself out of danger?"

"Uhhh.... Wouldn't I know if I'd triggered? I am pretty sure I can't teleport." Andrea keeps his reactions as close to baseline as he can manage, while sticking to technical truths. Wait... thats actually a good point he made. Wouldn't he know? Then what are these weird powers? Are they even actually real? He is pretty sure he actually is in Worm now and this isn't a brain damage hallucination, it seems too real, but he could be in Worm AND be brain damaged. Both can be true.

Armsmasters sensors would notice super obvious brain damage though right?

Maybe its stress, stress does weird things too. The powers seem real-ish, not like something his brain could just invent, but he is sure regular people on his earth who think they have powers feel that way too.

"The experience of receiving powers can sometimes be highly traumatic," he remarks. "It would not be totally unprecedented for you to have blocked it out or repressed it."

Armsmaster stands silently for a long moment.

"When did you become aware that you were not on Earth Aleph?"

"I knew I wasn't home from the cold and the cars being parked on the wrong side of the street. Then I came in here to be inside. But I realised I was on Bet when a guy at the counter mentioned Brockton bay after I asked where I was. I recognized it because I was... a cape nerd I guess? I asked again to confirm If this was the Brockton bay with the PRT and Kaiser and Lung. Then I hyperventilated and passed out. That's everything that's happened to me." All true things, Even with his maybe reaction control power he doesn't want the lie detector to ping any untruths or even any serious evasions. 

It's not like he can explain this universe Is fictional. Even if he could explain it it just seems like a bad idea to let the Brockton PRT know that, just on how badly they handle everything all the time. Okay maybe he is being uncharitable but the webnovel really doesn't paint them in a great light!

"So the man mentioned you were in Brockton Bay, and you immediately knew that you were potentially in proximity to Kaiser and Lung?" he clarifies. "Interesting."

He thumbs a button on his halberd, which makes a sort of thrumming sound. The area near Armsmaster becomes fractionally safer.

"I believe you may have powers related to sensing general danger, and potentially to avoiding it," he explains. "Is there anything else that you currently feel threatened by?"

"I mean I have low levels of Agoraphobia and social anxiety about talking to an authority figure but I know that's not what you meant. I mean what else is famous about Brockton Bay but its capes? I'm pretty sure thats not a power thing? It'd be like not knowing Legend is in New York or that the Teeth are in Boston." Still all technically true, knowing that wasn't even a power thing! Anyone who knew about the sword nazi and the rage dragon would be worried about being in the same state as them, much less the same city. Andrea also was prettttty sure the Teeth were in Boston during this part of the timeline. "I know who the Protectorate heroes are here too, well most of them I think, but you know, that's less worrying than the villains with civilian kill counts to their names."

Armsmaster was just bullshitting now, or stretching. He guessed close to correctly but for the entirely wrong reasons. Maybe correctly. He's not sure entirely sure these are real powers. He's not sure he would want the Protectorate to know about them even if they are real.

"But you specified that you knew you were in this Brockton Bay," Armsmaster presses. "Would it not have been more logical to assume that you were in the Brockton Bay on Earth Aleph?"

Responding to Armsmaster could potentially have many effects.

"Does Alpeh have one? I never heard of it back home, I feel like I'd have remembered it's name as a major-ish US city. Also I was suddenly in a different continent and kidnapping seemed really unlikely. Cape bullshit was on the mind. I did ask to confirm if it was the Brockton Bay with the famous capes. Maybe it could have been the Brockton Bay of a third earth or something. I didn't start hyperventilating until I checked and made sure." His thoughts were a lot less structured in the moment but those were all true statements. Andrea thought Aleph was closer to the real world, and had never developed a Brockton bay. Does Armsmaster know it does have one? or is he just as unsure about the geography of another world as Andrea is. The natives of Bet in the story seemed pretty unfamiliar with Aleph besides verrrrry little Aleph media that came through. Hopefully him being from not Aleph isn't too obvious.

Armsmaster nods.

"I see."

There's another uncomfortable pause.

"Would you be willing to come to the P.R.T. building to complete some paperwork related to your entrance to the United States?"

He doesn't make it sound like a question.

"Uhhh sure.... I had a valid student Visa for my local US if that helps..." It probably doesn't help. Andrea had come home for a visit during christmas and just.... stayed in australia, but he could have gone back. He thought about it at least, studying in America had been nice except for whole the failing some of his classes due to panic attacks thing. If not for being in a fictional setting with cosmic horrors in it, being back in the states would have been cool.

"Legally, the United States on each Earth are considered separate countries," Armsmaster informs him. "So your Visa would not be valid here. As you will be applying under the special asylum program, however, you will likely be issued a provisional extraordinary visa rather than a student one."

He leaves the shop, gesturing for Andrea to follow. His motorcycle deploys a terrifyingly minimalist sidecar at some unseen signal.

What does the danger sense say about sidecars in bikes? Because naively bikes always seemed pretty dangerous to Andrea. He doesn’t want to be rude though.

”Oh uhhh, this is fine, but for future reference you probably want to ask civilians if you should call a regular vehicle to pick them up. It’ll help keep them more at ease if they aren’t a cape fan that wants to ride the bike. If I wasn’t so worn out already, then riding a tiny sidecar on a super bike would give me anxiety. The agoraphobia also would trigger.”

He gets in the sidecar. “But I can’t actually feel any worse right now so it’s fine.” Unless the danger sense says otherwise. He provisionally trusts the danger sense.

The danger sense seems to think that Armsmaster's sidecar is actually much safer than other nearby locations.

"Calling for another vehicle would take another thirteen minutes," he informs Andrea. "But do not worry. My motorcycle has passed all relevant safety inspections."

He positions himself astride the motorcycle and hands Andrea a terrifyingly minimalist helmet to go along with the sidecar.

"And the passenger protection system uses state of the art tinkertech developed by Dragon," he elaborates, since Andrea is a cape fan. And containment foam genuinely is much safer than airbags, as well as doubling as an anti-theft device and emergency grenade refill.

“Fear isn’t always rational, sir. Even if most people are dumb, accomodating minor things like that leaves a better impression.” Armsmaster feels like the kind of guy who likes being called sir by those who are younger. Wich is itself a dumb thing you go along with to make interactions easier. 

“I know it’s probably safer than an armoured van.” Danger sense thinks its safe too. “But if I wasn’t so emotionally drained, my stupid monkey brain would still be worried.” What is he even doing? Trying to fix armsmaster when he barely knows the guy, its so weird and kinda parasocial to know so much about this guy but having just met him.

”Sorry, I should probably just shut up and let you drive, my brain is fried.” Shutting up is a good idea, before Andrea says something stupid, like revealing something he shouldn’t know.

Armsmaster is silent as the motorcycle spins up and moves out into traffic.

"I will take that under advisement," he eventually responds. His voice comes through a speaker in the helmet, because even though his motorcycle doesn't waste energy on producing excess noise, the traffic around them is comprised of normal internal combustion engines.

It would cause a lot of different potential outcomes if he pressed that red button and then jumped into traffic.

On a related note, a street full of cars is actually pretty dangerous — but the danger level of the buildings that they are passing is slowly going down for some reason.

They are getting closer to either PRT HQ or the Protectorate base. He forgets wich one Armsmaster said they were going to. That’d make areas safer.

Yeah lets ignore the chaos effects sense and randomization sense when it’s something dangerous. Andrea is more going to rely on it for pathing decisions when walking, or use it as a mental coinflip when being indecisive. Jumping out of the bike is stupid. Maybe now he knows what people who talk about intrusive thoughts about risky behaviour feel like.

He sits in the bike in silence, already exhausted, and knowing he will probably have to deal with even more tiring bureaucracy when they get there,

The ride is not much longer, in any case. Armsmaster pulls out of traffic and into an underground garage, where he has a designated parking space and a Trooper waiting.

The Trooper has an all-concealing black mask, but his faceplate is flipped up to reveal a welcoming smile.

"Welcome to America," he says, stepping forward as the bike comes to a halt.

"Trooper Barret can guide you from here. Please inform him immediately if you develop a headache," Armsmaster adds, gesturing for Andrea to return the helmet.

Trooper Barret's smile freezes in place for a moment.

"... yes, as Armsmaster said, I'm Daniel Barret, but you can call me Dan. What's your name?"

Ugh, new people, but probably easier to deal with than Colin. Andrea gives the helmet back and gets out, addressing new guy.

“Bro I already have a headache, I hyperventilated hard enough to pass out just a while ago. The adrenaline crash is making me want to puke. Everything hurts.” So Armsmaster is still convinced Andreas a cape. And maybe he is, but it’s fucking rude to out that like that even if he is. Definitely not having Thinker headaches though, Andrea is very familiar with migraine pain and none of that is happening.

“I’m Andrea. Andrea Valentini if my last name even matters anymore. It’s not like I have any family on Bet.” He doesn’t know if they briefed this guy so better get his not localness out there already.

"Right. Let's get you some water and the first set of forms, and then the rest can wait until you're feeling better."

Trooper Barret leads Andrea through a set of twisty little beige corridors, all alike. The inside of the P.R.T. building is relaxingly safe, and the trip eventually ends in a plain little conference room with a stack of papers waiting on the table.

"I'll go get some water. Take your time with these; there's no rush. If you don't know something, leave it blank. Alright?"

Andrea now has a choice, does he lie on the forms about his age. If he does reveal he has powers, does he want to be stuck as a ward or not. You know what, in almost all cases minors get treated like shit, he is going to lie and say he is 19. Huh… he doesn't know what year it is in setting, so how far back should he even put his date of birth…

Oh, the forms need to be dated and signed. That’s an excuse to find out what the date is without being weird. When Barret gets back he asks. “Hey, what’s the date again? The last couple of months have been kind of a blur.” That’s normal to ask, he always forgot the date normally.

Barret sets the water on the conference table.

"Today is Monday, the 22nd of February, 2011."

That’s… before canon right? Before Skitters debut? He thinks? It’s been too long since Andrea read canon but he vaguely feels like most fanfic also started a little later in the year.

Wait, power thingy, can he get retroactive better recall? That would make any plans to butterfly effect changes to the timeline way easier.

He chugs his water, fills out his forms, lies about his age making himself 19 instead of 17. It’s relatively believable physically, he ended up tall in the recent growth spurt. Then they let him take a nap in a trooper cot before he fills out even more forms, this time with who was probably some kind of immigration officer. Finally the paperwork is over.

No, he can't get retroactive better recall right now. He's too full. He needs to either merge the two precog-defying sparks or dismiss one of the sparks to make room.

Ah shit, he’s discount eidolon. Would merging the RNG machine and consequence sense keep functionality? If so, merge that and please give me better recall. Andrea would like to remember Worm better, also to help make sure he’s not confusing fanon with canon. Otherwise drop location danger sense, it’s not as urgent now.

Now all the immigration paperwork is done he is just waiting in a little room. The reality of his situation outside of the future knowledge and cape drama hits him. How will he get a job with no references or proof of education? Where will he live? America has basically no social safety net and no socialised healthcare. He is pretty sure Obama isn’t even president on Bet and Obamacare never happened. It’s relatively easy to not starve to death because food is way cheaper and food banks exist but god damn is living in America way more risky, add in the ridiculous levels of gang violence and cape fights and living here is going to suck.

The source of randomness and the consequence sense snap together like magnets, merging to form a brighter spark. And, indeed, no functionality seems to be lost. If anything, his sense of consequences seems to have become ... sharper, perhaps, or accounting for more probabilities.

If he invents a conlang to pretend to be fluent in this will have diverse effects.

A fourth spark blooms in his chest, and with it his memory of the things he's read about Worm sharpen, leaping to mind with much greater ease. In fact —

Oh shit, something Andrea remembers from fanfic, and he assumes the author got the date correct. Then he searches for references in the story itself and remembers a list of endbringer attacks from later on in the story and yep that date was correct. The Simurgh attack on Canberra happens in two days on the 24th, maybe less due to timezones. Australia is like 8 hours ahead of gmt right? 

Well, he can’t keep his powers a secret now, letting Canberra be quarantined just to maintain some anonymity and some better ability to influence the timeline is not something Andrea can do. Maybe if he was colder he could let a city die for a better chance to save the whole world but he simply cannot do that.

He gets up, and starts doing every action he can in this room to muddy the future sight of precogs, he lets RNGeesus take the wheel.

As he steps randomly around the room or does weird poses or moves the chairs around the room, he loudly calls for whatever trooper is outside the door. “HEY GUYS! SORRY FOR HIDING THIS BUT I’M A THINKER AND I NEED TO TALK TO ARMSMASTER AND MISS MILITIA AND DRAGON LIKE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW IT IS SUPER URGENT! LIKE HOLY SHIT THEY NEED TO BE HERE AN HOUR AGO! FATE OF MILLIONS KINDA STUFF! IM GONNA BE DOING WEIRD STUFF IN THIS ROOM AND THATS JUST A POWER THING OKAY DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT JUST GET THEM HERE! THANK YOU!”

Uh.

Well, there is in fact a code for this, because the P.R.T. is that kind of workplace. Trooper Hammonds radios it in and then opens the door.

"Hey — I've called that in to dispatch, but are you ..."

She watches Andrea move erratically for a moment. It's kind of hypnotizing to watch.

"Do you need those three specifically, and can you say why? It's not that we don't believe you —" because Armsmaster was pretty sure you were a Thinker "— but why now? And what's up with your, um."

She gestures at him.

“Ah fuck I don’t know if this will tip her off or not, but whatever I WILL BE EXTRA RANDOM TO MAKE UP FOR IT.” He yells the last part, randomly. “ANTI SIMURGH PRECOG MEASURES! Butterfly effects! WICH IS WHY I NEED THEM HERE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW BECAUSE I KNOW THE NEXT TARGET! HURRY! ALSO UHHH TRY TO DO SLIGHTLY RANDOM OUT OF CHARACTER THINGS FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS TO INFLUENCE OTHER PEOPLE, IT MIGHT MAYBE HELP! I REALLY HAVE NO IDEA BUT IT CAN’T HURT!”

Knock on effects of RNGeesus from other people affected by him should still be effective right?

He makes sure to put one of the chairs outside in the hallway, for some reason that feels like it will have big consequences. Maybe someone will take another path because of it. Or trip on it. RNGeesus works in mysterious ways.

Trooper Hammonds does not have fancy probability theory training, but she does have basic common sense.

The number of Thinkers who can correctly predict the Simurgh: 0
The number of crazy people who think they can predict the Simurgh: several

"Okay, take a deep breath," she instructs, holding out her arms in a pacifying gesture. "Let's not take chances with tipping off the Simurgh to whatever it is you think you've figured out. Let's take a minute to think through a reasonable response first, and then we can see about calling Dragon."

Because Dragon always seems to have time for these sorts of things, and Armsmaster will be mad if Trooper Hammonds wastes his time.

“Bro you do not understand my thinker bullshit, it is the MOST BULLSHIT! Unique levels of cape bullshit! So call Colin and Hannah and Theresa fucking Richter right the fuck now!” Name dropping secret identities to get attention was a dick move, but letting Canberra die was a dicker move. “Tell Colin to bring his lie detector so he knows I’m telling the truth, and that his nanothorns will injure but not kill an endbringer. Also tell Hannah I also know what the two creatures in space from her trigger vision are.” 

“The Ziz is the precog to end all precogs, as soon as I planned on telling someone she might have already known, depends if she is paying attention. I don’t thiiiink she has infinite attention. So I need to muddy up the future as much as possible. This isn’t being crazy, this is power bullshit.” And the table is now getting pushed into the corner, why? Who knows, but it’ll do something, maybe throw someone off their game.

”Dragon are you listening through the security cameras? Did a keyword get flagged or something? Because seriously you are probably the person who could do the most with this knowledge. The other two are just backups.”

Trooper Hammonds isn't actually cleared for Cape identities. But that seems likely to change soon, one way or the other.

"Dispatch? I think we have a situation," she mutters into her radio.

Over the next several seconds, messages fly from Hammonds to dispatch, and from dispatch to the phone network, and from the phone network to a secure datacenter near Hudson Bay.

A screen flickers to life at the side of the meeting room. On it, a Canadian woman in a tinkertech mask appears, looking tired.

"As it happens, I don't have the ability to run continuous keyword searches on all internal P.R.T. surveillance," she informs Andrea. "Although I admit it's very tempting to write a program that searches for 'Theresa fucking Richter', if you're going to out capes instead of making a phone call."

“I don’t have a phone! And this is urgent! Also hi, big fan, best cape of all time, you are actually a good person in pretty much all ways while everyone else is significantly flawed if probably still trying their best. Anyway thinker bullshit! I know the next planned target but maybe telling you makes her change her target? But also one of my powers is fiat backed randomness that cannot be predicted by precogs so thats why I’m acting power backed randomly to throw off any future simulations. So can I give you a bunch of suggestions for weird non harmful stuff to do to see if we can’t muddy the future and blind the Simurgh? She’s not all knowing I just don’t know exactly HOW. I can’t just not tell you because then a city dies. But if she changes targets then it’s not useful!” He is rambling and out of breath by the end of that. But seriously the maximum amount of information needs to be shared in the minimum amount of time.

What does RNGeesus say about the consequences of telling dragon? Big change? Little change?

Lots of potential effects, depending on exactly what he tells her. More effects than ... anything else he's done so far, actually.

"Right. Okay,"

She flicks through some digitized forms too quickly for the human eye to perceive.

"Andrea. That's called 'the problem of prophecy', and it's something a lot of powerful precogs have to deal with. We have procedures for how to deal with it. Now, before you tell me anything else, how urgent is this, time-wise? Do we have seconds, minutes, or hours to deal with this? Don't tell me. Just think about that and let it inform your future choices. With that in mind, do you want to hear about Protectorate procedures for dealing with precognition like this?"

And then, as she's waiting for the humans to catch up with what she's just said, she checks her Simurgh tracking software, just in case.

In low Earth orbit, a malign alien intelligence calculates the worst possible thing.

Slowly, she turns to face Dragon's upwards facing camera. Then, with deliberate slowness, she makes an "I'm watching you" gesture.

“Uh yes procedures is probably good, also wow my power thinks you can fuck up the future alot, fuck up in a good way where it changes predictions. Like why was I even moving tables when literally every word I say to you probably has insane ripple effects. Take that YOU STUPID SHITBIRD!” It’s not like the Simurgh can want to kill him more, isn’t she maximally terrible at all times, as long as it results in civilisation slowly collapsing, anyway?

”If it’s not a big deal, fuck with traffic lights by like a second or two everywhere you can. That’s some good future ripples right there.” He just needs to think of what he might say, see if it would have real big effects, and say it if it does. He can go through dozens of stupid future effecting ideas in a second and pick out the best one. What a good power he has, that he is sorry for underestimating.

You know what, he probably doesn’t need reaction control or location danger sense powers anymore right now. Dropping those. Let’s double down on future prediction denial, can he have a power to sense what actions are personally dangerous to him? Spidey sense? He is struggling with ideas for the second power to grab but he gestures vaguely more towards something that will fuck up predictions again.

Now he knows he can drop and grab more powers, minmaxxing for the current situation makes sense.

The reaction control and locational danger sense sparks drift out and away from him, before vanishing. A more personal danger sense blooms. Then the sparks hesitate for a long moment, giving off a sense of uncertainty.

But Andrea seems busy, so they do their best. The result is a fourth spark that does ... something obscure to gravity in a small area around him. But the strange impressions from his sparks suggest that it will help. The two new sparks seem to like each other.

"Interfering with functional traffic control devices in the absence of a clear and present danger is against the law," Dragon informs him. "But I can take a rolling hash of your video image and xor it into the seeds for the CSPRNGs on computers I control."

On another world, a woman in a fedora pauses in the middle of messing with a crimescene, one hand going to her head as the path jumps wildly.

"Path to eliminating this new source of interference," she mutters. And then "Door to conference room 3, Brockton Bay P.R.T, 3 by 3, to my right."

She fires a bullet.

Andrea's new danger sense spikes wildly, about two seconds before a shimmering 3-inch square hole in space opens beside Dragon's camera.

Well Andrea has been doing pretty well at randomly stepping around the room. So the bullet should miss? Obviously he freaks out and leaps out of the way also. “ALREADY?! FUCK YOU BOOGEYMAN! FUCK FUCK!”

He want’s to jump behind the table for cover but that would limit his choices and being unpredictable is the only thing saving him from precog assassination. He is hyped up on adrenaline so he says some pretty stupid shit instead of cowering in fear like would be reasonable. “HAH! THE RANDOMNESS IS AFFECTING PRECOGS! YES!”

If it works against Contessa, it probably works against Simurgh. If he dies in the next few moments it’s probably still a good thing for the chances of the world because of what Dragon just did.

The bullet hits the corner of the table. Trooper Hammonds squawks a panic on her radio because there are not supposed to be random shootings in the P.R.T. base.

The P.R.T. dispatch triggers a lockdown of the base — incidentally cutting off certain types of remote access as an anti-stranger measure.

Contessa finishes scribbling a note and drops it through a second portal.

Dragon's image freezes on the screen.

The note wafts gently to the conference room table, flipping upright at the last moment.

Yes. What you're doing is working against the one precog trying to hold this entire fucking system together and prevent the world from collapsing into anarchy, killing billions.

Hope you're happy.

Hugs and Kisses, Contessa

Okay, you know what, let’s pre commit to maximising randomness if Contessa doesn’t open a portal to talk right now, since dragon seems to have lagged out that is probably safe-ish for her. That way path to victory will tell her to talk to him. And also it will tell her how to perfectly manipulate him. Thats…. Fine, Cauldron might suck but they do in fact want the world to not end. Andrea can rely on RNGeesus for some future choices to fight at least some effects of manipulation.

If he sees a portal he will immediately blurt: ”I have knowledge about your blind spots! Your precog paths end up pretty bad actually because of them! You can’t do Endbringers, I can! Or could… I know what happens if I never acted. Your planned future sucks and kills trillions not billions! It can definitely be improved. Come on if I know who you even are then It’s gotta be real knowledge right?” Come on path to victory, future knowledge is a good thing to have, don’t tell her to kill me.

... and 30 seconds ago, that might have worked. But Andrea wanted the sparks to help him be immune to precognition, and they've done their best to help.

The fourth spark has an effect on gravity — not a traditional or obvious precognition counter — but in this case, it renders Andrea opaque to tachyons. Meaning that certain types of shard-based temporal precognition can no longer directly glean information about his future thoughts. This wouldn't be too much of a hindrance to Path to Victory under normal conditions. However ...

Andrea has spent almost all of his time on this planet with a source of true randomness and multiple non-shard based extrasensory powers dumping information into his head. Path to Victory could build a neural model off of the scans of Andrea's arrival, simulate it forward, and see what he just committed to. But it's already stopped him from feeding more randomness to Dragon, and it's juggling multiple concurrent paths. Simulating Andrea's brainstate isn't energy efficient, when there's no particular indication that it needs to.

Step 43: Knock the candle onto the desk.

So Contessa continues about her business.

And high above them, the Simurgh laughs.

Hnnnn….. fucking with the Simurghs precog is probably still better for the world even if it is accidentally foiling whatever dastardly deeds path to victory is up to. If Contessa doesn’t want to talk, she will just have to deal with it. The golden morning happens soon following Cauldrons paths anyway, just denying shards accurate simulated futures in general seems like a net positive. 

Also he just almost got shot. Where is the PRT? “I’M STILL ALIVE BY THE WAY! The bullet missed!”

The PRT hasn't moved, mainly because it's been less than a minute. The particular part of the PRT that is Trooper Hammonds makes a judgement call and tackles Andrea.

"I have no idea what you're doing, but whatever it is almost got us shot," she says, trying to pin his arms so that he stops moving. "Let's calm down, stop yelling, and discuss this like rational adults before it happens again."

“Get off me dude! Me moving around is what keeps me safe! A precog didn’t like that I was messing up the future, so she tried to shoot me and probably missed because I wasn’t where she predicted I would be. So hey that’s one point towards my anti Simurgh measures being real right? If what I did doesn’t unpredictably change the future why would a precog try and shoot me.” Man it would suck if he got shot now that he can’t move. He hasn’t even saved Canberra yet. 

“Also can we get Dragon back. She was gonna tell me about prophecy procedures and I need something to focus on because I almost just died and this is a terrible time for a panic attack. Things are still urgent.”

Hammonds rolls off him and get into a low crouch.

"Okay. Well, if people are going to be shooting at you, stay low to the ground and behind cover," she advises. "And we can't get Dragon back because the base has been put into lockdown. We need to wait for that to clear. Now, obviously stopping the Simurgh is very important. But you cannot do that if you get shot, and I do not want to be shot myself. So stop making precogs shoot at us and come up with a plan. Is getting read in on PRT prophecy procedure still the most important task, at this point? If so, we can make our way to a secure terminal and I can pull it up."

“Yes that, right now, but also cover doesn’t matter, the bullet came through a portal. Which can open anywhere. So I just need to be where they don’t expect. Ive had this power like a few hours dude, if its confusing to you then it’s worse for me. I have to actually think like this. Prophecy procedure is what we need and then someone can call dragon by sticking a phone out the window. Or get Armsmaster. He can tell her later.” And let’s focus on the immediate problems and not how close you are to death at all times. Yep. No thinking about mortality.

Okay. Well, if cover doesn't matter, then Trooper Hammonds can radio an update to dispatch, and then take Andrea through the facility at a fast jog to an isolated secure terminal.

She beeps her badge and switches to 'guest' mode before searching for the relevant policy manual.

"Alright — there you are," she tells him. "I'll cover you while you read, and let you know when the base goes off lockdown or we reestablish communication with Dragon."

The PRT Anti-pre-conditioned precognition preparedness procedures were almost certainly named by someone with a dry, bureaucratic sense of humor. They are also all about containing and isolating the causal effects of a prediction — getting the most use out of a prediction while causing the fewest butterfly effects. There are some genuinely clever ideas. They do not seem like the kind of ideas that will do much against the Simurgh.

“Okay uhm… maybe telling you the Simurghs attack location would not help?…. Or…. If I don’t tell you until right at the last second. Which… I'm not sure even helps that much…. Not much time for Evac…”

Hmmm… all he has is an RNG machine, a consequence enormity sense, and a personal danger sense. To fight a fucking precognitive malignant alien intelligence.

Okay, you know what? If the Simurgh hasn’t already changed plans to attack somewhere else….

Rng machine, give me a number of hours before I will choose to tell them. And then when that time is up he will use the RNG machine to decide even IF he should tell them. Really make things impossible to predict. Double things up so its harder to plan for every eventuality.

Wait no, RNG a number of hours under a day, before using RNG to find out a number of minutes, before using RNG to decide on another waiting period to be decided between minutes and hours. Then RNG the number of hours or minutes. Before RNG deciding wether to tell them. That seems like enough steps.

His fiat backed RNG affecting dragons programs was enough to make path to victory freak out, it has to do something. When you have a hammer every problem is solved by RNGeesus take the wheel. Also every problem is foresight, so it really can’t hurt to just make things harder for foresight in general.

Once Canberra is dealt with he can make other plans, but making long term plans before a Simurgh attack is actively counter productive. Canberra first, then who knows, try to talk to Taylor or Amy Dallon or something, get those butterflies moving in better directions.

Oh since he did almost die, he should probably tell someone the secret of now proven to work anti precog, maybe they can get a tinker solution if he dies. “Oh by the way in case I die. My anti precog plan is based on power backed randomness, I’m using it to make choices for me. If I die you could maybe get a tinker to make a true random number generator that is not based on deterministic principles. It might work to at least make Simurghs plots harder to pull off if you use a power backed truly random coinflip for some decisions.”

WHY DID HE HAVE TO SHOW UP LITERALLY JUST BEFORE A SIMURGH ATTACK! if he got here two days in the future he’d have months to prepare for Leviathan! He could have layed low. Helped some people who he knew the futures of. Maybe texted Armsy tips on how to be a better person. Probably tried to figure out how to free dragon and failed to come up with any good ideas. But nooooooo, he had to be here just before the Canberra attack and be unable to let it happen. And now his life is like THIS. Relying on RNGeesus is hurting his brain! Not literally, it’s not a thinker headache, but thinking in terms of future sight sucks! It sucks so much!

Trooper Hammonds is fairly sure that the P.R.T. has in fact tried this and it didn't help. But she makes a note of it anyway.

"Okay. What do you need now? More information? Time to plan?"

“How long will the lockdown be? Or can we stick a phone out the window? Because honestly Dragon is my best bet here to muddy up the future and Simurghs precog enough that I’d feel safe telling her. If I even do because maybe that makes things worse, the shitbird can plan around it. Fuck I hate dealing with time bullshit. I’ve had powers for hours and instead of doing baby cape stuff I’m dealing with the Ziz. Fuck my life.” Woooo rambling. Because watching what he says is just too much effort now, being normal is an thing he can pretend to be just fine when he has effort to spare, he has no effort to spare.

“But uhhh in case I suddenly get killed, maybe I should tell someone else all the other huge secrets I know. Is Armsmaster or Miss Militia still coming? I’d even take calling Piggot at this point even if she will probably hate my guts.” Jack slash needs to die, it’ll put off the golden morning for YEARS. He needs to tell them how to kill him. Even cauldron can’t complain about that.

It sucks that he has to think about spilling the future knowledge right this second and giving away leverage over the PRT, Instead of being able to take things slow and calmly. But he couldn’t let Canberra die and now he is at risk of dying himself.

"I'm not actually sure where they are, but I can ask."

She exchanges a few words with dispatch, while keeping a wary eye out for whatever it is that's going to happen next.

"So apparently there's a technical malfunction that is preventing the lockdown from being lifted. And the lockdown involves steel shutters over most exterior access points. But Armsmaster is working on the roof access —" because he's stuck on the roof "— and Miss Millitia is en route."

“Fucking boogeyman.” He curses under his breath. How did path to victory even manage this? “Armsmaster should be able to get through steel relatively quickly. I don’t want to jynx things though by being too hopeful.”

Okay while Andrea waits, he will query RNG for a number under 24. For the amount of hours until the second step.

15.6868992 (15 hours, 41 minutes, 12 seconds)

Trooper Hammonds says nothing. She's pretty sure that Armsmaster did something to the shutters to make them more resilient, but she isn't going to go around just giving that information to poorly vetted parahumans.

They don't have to wait more than another moment for a woman with a flag bandanna wrapped around her face and a green-and-black taser on her hip to come jogging down the corridor, accompanied by two more black-helmeted troopers.

"Good morning," she says. "I'm afraid I was off-duty, and haven't been briefed, but I'm told that there's a matter of some urgency?"

“Hi, sorry I outed your identity to this trooper but it was urgent and I needed to be believed about my thinker bullshit. Seriously sorry, you are one of the good ones. Anyway I have some serious thinker bullshit going on, so I know a bunch of stuff, Including the next Simurgh attack location, and I’ve been deliberately fucking with how other powers simulate the future in an attempt to throw off the Simurgh. It pissed off another precog who tried to kill me just now. So I should tell someone with clearance the other big secrets I know in case another assassination attempt is successful. I still haven’t figured out if or how to tell anyone about the Simurgh attack location because she could just plan around it or change targets. I hate precog nonsense so much.” Deep breath after saying all that in one go. Also still stepping around the room randomly, in case of portal shooting. Leg muscles ache that he didn’t even know he had.

It is probably super weird to look at because the human brain would keep looking for patterns, and using RNGeesus to decide how to step means there can’t be long term patterns.

So he doesn't actually need her, he just asked for her because she's 'one of the good ones'.

It's not really very reassuring for a newly-triggered Thinker's list of "capes who can be trusted with secrets" to be three people long.

"I'll do my best," she promises, because she is one of the good ones. "How classified do these things need to be? Will a secure conference room do?"

“I’m less worried about mundane spying than thinkers. Probably? Oh yeah one of the things I wanted to tell you was about your trigger vision. You aren’t crazy, it was real, it’s pretty bad news. It’s related to other stuff I know.”

Contessa already wanted to kill him, screw cauldron wanting to keep this secret. If you can’t trust miss militia who can you trust. Wow that was parasocial as hell.

Random duck just in case of portal shooting? No gun? That’s good. Andrea’s calves are burning something fierce from all these movements though. 

Miss Millitia blinks.

"H-How did you know about that?" she asks, before gathering her wits and gesturing Andrea toward one such secure conference room. "I've told a very limited number of people." She signals the troopers to wait outside.

“Thinker bullshit.” It’s not like it would stop Contessa, but Andrea closes the door to the room, just in case. “By the way, what you saw is the source of powers. Turns out everyone who triggers sees it, they just are forced to forget what they saw by their powers unless you are a noctis cape. This is big picture important but not immediately important.”

Okay, what is immediately useful knowledge if he dies… and what probably isn’t a good idea for the PRT to know about… They don’t need to know about Taylor, or Amy, or Lisa/Sarah. They do need to know about Jack Slash and Coil. Definitely should’t know about Dragon.

”Jack slash needs to die or the world will end in a few years, all the worlds, Aleph and all the others too. He’s a master, a strong one. He can manipulate capes through their powers so they ALWAYS mess up killing him, range doesn’t matter, you will fail. You need regular human snipers, or troopers with suicide vests. Even drones piloted by Dragon won’t work. Has to be a normal unpowered person without any parahuman in their chain of command to attempt to kill him, or he will know. Nobody with powers should know the plan to kill him. Nobody with family who has powers. And it should be planned fairly low down on the chain of command if possible because then there’s less chance for anyone with powers to intercept the data. If a mole to a villain sees the plan and tells their boss, Slash will avoid it.

He needs to die. If you have to nuke him that sucks but it puts off the death of trillions. That’s the most important thing I know.

What else…

Coil is Thomas Calvert. Who also needs to die like yesterday. He’s used his power to counter factually torture kids. Coils power is precog based. He runs two simulations then picks the one with the outcome he likes better. He experiences it as alternate timelines. He can’t run simulations inside simulations so how you get him is to get him to ‘split’ his timeline just before something unavoidable. So no matter what he does there’s not enough time for him to change things. Also he uses his ‘timelines’ to torture information out of people and it really seems like he enjoys it. He’s coercing one of his capes under threat of death, and has tortured them a bunch in simulations to know all their secrets. Be nice to them if you find out who it is.

Accord is a terrible person but his power is actually very strong, maybe the PRT should actually try some of his plans. He would probably kill less people if he could enact his plans and his power wasn’t making him so crazy.

The group known as the Travellers are Simurgh bombs, Noelle can become an S class threat if we don’t find a way to remove her powers. Which is possible to do.

Uhhh…. Oh! Blasto can clone capes. You need to recruit him. At all costs. Seriously. Army of Alexandria’s. I don’t actually know for sure if that helps put off the end of the world, unlike killing Jack Slash, but an army Alexandrias seems useful for Endbringers at least.”

It’s getting hard to remember all the relevant plot points. Oh… the extra Endbringers. Does he want to tell them about this? He… he should trust an adult, for once in his life.

 “This next one I think you should keep secret so society doesn’t collapse. But I trust you to probably know when is best to reveal this if I happen to die. There’s a LOT more Endbringers. If you kill one, the extra’s start to get activated. So you need a really good sure fire way to kill them all once that ball gets rolling. The next one is a fat baby looking thing that has Spheres that trap you in accelerated time. You turn to skeletons and dust if caught in it. Also he can teleport all over the world during his attacks. Real bullshit stuff. The next ones are a pair, one copies 3 powers around it and another is terrain manipulation and setting up traps. Endbringer grade traps. There’s more of them but I don’t know their powers.

I’m sorry to just dump this massive world altering choice on you but seriously if I got killed and had told nobody I’d be really stupid and kinda evil.”

He doesn’t know if he should tell her about Eidolon, and he is not sure Eidolon can even turn the endbringers off. It’s Implied he turns new ones on? He needs to have a way to talk to Cauldron. The Protectorate and PRT can’t handle Eidolon.

His brain is so worn out, it hasn't even been a whole day since he appeared in the alley. He is sure he is missing something big.

”I know too many things, so many things. If there’s some secret you can imagine that Protectorate doesn’t know that it should know, ask me? I seriously might know it. And I just don’t remember how important it is and that I should tell you about it. It’s seriously too much info at once to figure it all out and I’m sure I've forgotten to tell you something important.”

Fuck it, the portal attack can just shoot him if it’s coming. He is going to slump into a chair. Random pacing is exhausting and he is worn out. If he dies now plenty of people were probably saved.

"... right."

Well, maybe it does actually make sense for him to ask for her, since that was a lot and she has a good memory.

"You've implied that you know the source of powers?" she asks, definitely because it's important information for the P.R.T. to have and only slightly because it's personally relevant.

“Yep, it’s the things you saw in your trigger vision. They come to planets with intelligent life on them and shed parts of themselves that infect the natives. Thats the powers. They collect new data on power use by forcing the natives into conflict. Then once they have enough data or most of the people are dead, they eat every version of that planet across all the dimensions and move on. Powers are from hostile giant planet sized multi dimensional aliens. Jack Slash triggers the end early. Like maybe 15 years early optimistically. He needs to die. Even just a few years delay could make a big big difference in the final fight, especially in civilian death counts.

There are already people who know about the apocalypse and are planning for it, but they need time, if it triggers early it’s real bad.”

Technically the earths survive, but Scion kills so many people across all the earths that it’s still the majority of humanity that dies. He has to believe they can do better than that. Dinah predicted that maybe billions on this earth could survive the end if Jack Slash dies. That has to be way more people alive across all the earths.

Taylor is still alive so Khepri can still possibly kill Scion. But with more time to prepare. The Dinah predictions with Jack Slash dead all seemed better than the canon timeline, so there must be a way to kill scion even without Taylor. Because she couldn’t have been alive in all those futures. Cauldron had to have some power combo or plan right? Or else what are they even for.

He is definitely saving lives instead of dooming them by butterflying away the one known future with a pyrrhic victory. He has to be.

“Probably bad things happen if you tell people about the source of powers or that the Apocalypse eventually happens even with Jack slash dead. But Jack slash needs to die and theres good odds on the Apocalypse being wayyyyy less bad if he dies. And like… with 15 years I feel like I could come up with something. There’s hope. I already figured out how Blasto could help. I’ve got all kinds of power interaction knowledge, I just need to remember it all.”

He lays his head on the table. “I feel like I probably need a super genius like Dragon to help with figuring this out. Also for foiling the Simurgh’s simulations. She’s great at maximising the ripples of my anti determinism. Precogs are very very scary.”

She probably thinks he is a precog too. Hah, none of his powers are foresight actually, somehow that is reassuring, the shards didn’t give him this knowledge so it feels safer to use.

Andrea still has 15 whole hours until he has to do step two in the anti Simurgh plan . If RNG is kind and the Simurgh hasn’t changed ALL her plans, then Canberra can  hopefully have some time to evacuate.

"... oh."

She wants to protest. She has always personally believed that the great beings she saw — spiraling through the void to save her at her moment of greatest need — were angels. America is not a religious nation, not by Kurdish standards, and so she has always been ... quiet, about her belief. But it has buoyed her through some of her darkest moments, the thought that God has a plan for her.

So she does not accept the things Andrea tells her. Or, not totally. That Jack Slash is an evil man she can well believe. That the angels she saw will doom the human race ...

Ultimately, it's not her call. Andrea believes it, and she will put it in a report, and it will go to someone who will make a decision. She does her duty to the country that saved her.

"Are there any other ... not 'imminent' threats, per se, but priority targets like Jack Slash?"

“Stopping Coil is one…. Blasto recruitment is another…Oh shit uh yeah Lung has a new recruit, or will have a new recruit. March 23rd-ish. Not world ending threat but like a few hundred people die so it’s still a big deal. Tinker 6 bomb tinker, she puts bombs in peoples head to forcibly recruit them into the ABB and use as hostages. She triggers at Cornell university. Might have already happened?

Her bombs can help kill Crawler though. So if it all possible take her workshop? She might not have done this yet but she triggers bombs with a toe ring. Cut her foot off first try, or she will deadmans switch her bombs to a heart monitor or something.  If you want to enrage her, poke her about being stupid or a failure, one of those real has to be the smartest person in the room inferiority complex type tinkers.

Heartbreakers kid Cherie is a Slaughterhouse 9 future recruit. She’s out there somewhere. Emotion manipulation that’s real subtle. Can pavlovs dog you into wanting almost anything. It’s more powerful than you’d think.

Also if she isn't already mysteriously missing. someone check on Mouse Protector? This might have already happened but Ravager hires the nine to kill her, they get her and then Bonesaw fuses her body to Ravager for daring to think they could be hired. I really hope that hasn’t happened yet… She seemed cool.

Honestly most of the Slaughterhouse 9 rely on Jack’s master power to avoid ambushes, besides crawler they really are very killable without him. Oh fuck just remembered! The Siberian is a projection, the master is in a van nearby the slaughterhouse 9 at all times. He's a old man. Kill him and she pops.

I can’t think of anything else…. Nothing that doesn't already require Dragon. Or Armsmaster for another thing.”

Andrea would reveal Kaisers identity, but like, it actually IS a good idea for the Protectorate and PRT to respect secret identities, Coil gets an exception because he is actively infiltrating them using his power. You don’t get to use your secret identity offensively. He can figure out a way to personally fuck over Kaiser and Medhall later.