The interviewer, Plum Kaepernick, appears and takes a seat. "Cameras aren't rolling yet. Anything I need to know last minute?" she asks. "This is for example the right time to ask if you're not sure how to pronounce my name or something."

"Plum Kae-per-nick, right?"  A person's name is the nicest thing they'll ever hear, make sure you pronounce it correctly.  "I'm going by my codename right now, it's 'Aumento'.  I don't think I'm missing anything apart from that, ma'am."

"You've got it. Aumento," she repeats. "All right, and we're going to get those lights up and go in five, four..." The cameraman counts down the rest of the way on his fingers and Plum arranges herself to beam at the camera. "Hi there, everybody, it's Plum again and I'm here to introduce you to a new local esper! Aumento here just awakened recently and looks ready to hit the ground running. Aumento, how'd you choose that codename?"

Okay, you planned for this one, it's easy.  "It's 'I augment' in Spanish.  It turns out that picking out codenames is pretty tricky, we've had espers for a long time and it felt like all the cool ones were taken.  My power is all about lifting others up, and I was raised speaking Spanish at home.  So, Aumento."

"So that's sounding like something in the 'buff' category, is that right?"

"Yes'm.  I can give other people enhanced strength and durability, along with some ability to recover from injury.  I'm hoping to help bridge a gap for people who would be a perfect fit for a dungeon if they could just endure the dungeon's hazards better."  That's not a complete answer, but I don't have a duty to tell everyone everything about my power.

"Fellow espers, or more like souped-up SWAT teams?"

"More likely fellow espers, since I'd prefer to have guiding available.  It also does take a little bit of getting used to, along with special equipment - I had a MOLLE rig commissioned with elastic EVERYWHERE.  It's easy to accidentally stretch too far and pop a button."

"A MOLLE rig?" she asks, leaning forward with elbows-on-knees fascination.

"Oh, yeah - it's a kind of load-bearing equipment.  It's like LEGOs, but for carrying equipment, first aid kits and stuff.  You can put pouches and bags and stuff everywhere, there are like multitool sheathes designed to fit right into it."  Tim is beginnig to get more animated, gesturing at where his imaginary MOLLE rig pouches are.  "I can get you a photo of it at some point, I have it on my phone.  I really like it because you can customize it however makes sense for you, if your equipment is imbalanced, you've got noone to blame but yourself."  You sound like an infomercial.

"And the elastic is so you don't, with the enhanced strength, break something? So this must be more than normal esper strength by a fair margin."

"Yes, and the durability is just as important.  A lot of the reason humans don't use their full strength is that it hurts, right?  If you don't have to worry about pinching your fingertips between the fingerbone and a fifty pounds, you can do more and for longer.  Like those stupid trashbags that turn into razorblades when you put fifty pounds' worth of junk in them."  THAT IS NOT PROFESSIONAL.  Wait, is this being vulnerable?  Being too perfect will make people uneasy, maybe this is okay.

"I never thought about it that way. You must have a pretty good backlash conversion rate, if you can count on being able to carry more gear through an entire dungeon run."

"Well, I can always take it off if I have to, I'd rather have to replace my backpack later than get left behind.  But even if I could carry a pickup on my back, I still need to have mobility and to not get caught on things."  Perfect, very professional.

"And you do sound like you're planning on a dungeoneering career! Have you had a field test yet or is it still in the works?"

"I have, actually!  Did you hear of the pool dungeon, the one with the tiny sharks in it?  It was a little embarrassing to get deployed to it, honestly, it was this liminal swimming pool that trapped people on islands of concrete, with sharks swimming around the islands.  The problem was that this dungeon didn't understand scale, or something like that?"  Don't UPTALK.  "So the moats between the islands was maybe two or three feet.  Everyone jumped out and escaped on their own except for this older couple who didn't want to risk it.  Ten minutes with a wood plank later, and everyone was rescued.  After that, I stripped down and fished out a couple of the sharks.  We smashed the core and went home."

"Do you get to keep the sharks?" she asks, though it's pretty clear from her smile she's joking.

"I only have visitation rights, unfortunately.  They're hoping the sharks can breed, or maybe see if we can get them to re-grow their teeth like normal sharks."  Yessss, looking harmless, definitely not like killerdon'tthinkaboutit.  Keep talking, Tim!  "If they do re-grow, I've been promised dibs on one of the teeth, though I'm not sure what I'd do with it yet.  Got any ideas?"

"I think putting it on a necklace is traditional."

"Probably better than an earring, I'm not sure how that would work with the healing."  Say something intelligent.  Anything.  Fuck.  Tim.exe is not responding.

"How does the healing work? I know every esper's power is different."

"Well, it's hard to test because I don't want to injure people!  But it works best if an injury is recent.  If the injury is older, it's pretty slow.  If we set everything up to maximize my own ability to help people, I'd have a teleporter dropping someone on my lap whenever they get injured.  I don't want to say more to protect patient privacy, but I can confirm that one person who was injured quite seriously after a fall made a full recovery that same day."  Please don't ask anymore.

"It's good that you're on top of that! Do you see yourself balancing both roles going forward, or specializing?"

"I plan to fill as much of my downtime as possible with healing.  Aside from guiding, it's basically free.  I don't have to concentrate all that much.  I just have to make sure my patients don't smash their phones on accident!  Sinkhole, my current partner, is on board with this plan.  Unfortunately, if the injury isn't really recent, within minutes, the healing isn't very fast.  So I don't think I'd make a good specialized healer.  It's better than sitting around waiting, of course, but..."  Tim trails off, looking a little self-conscious.

"Was it hard to find an agent who could cover both dungeon assignment and all the steps involved in setting you up to heal?"