Differentiation 3.4
April 11th, 2011
"I love you, kiddo, but there's absolutely no way I'm letting you do that."
I frowned before responding with, "I never ask for anything. I just want to hang out with a friend, why's that even such a big deal?"
"It's a big deal because we live in the Docks. There's no telling what trouble you could run into if you stayed out too late, even if you're going to somewhere a bit safer like Downtown," My Dad reminded me.
"I know," I sighed, "I'm carrying that bear spray you got me; even if someone decided to mess with me, I'd be fine. Really."
"Oh, Taylor…" My Dad trailed off before finding some reservoir of internal strength and continuing on, "I can't help but worry. I'm glad you're making friends, but I don't want to lose you…"
My Dad's words cut through my defenses, and I flinched slightly.
He took the opportunity to keep speaking, "I've gotten used to you being more… withdrawn, I suppose. I'm happy to see you reaching out and making new friends, but it's hard to accept that you're changing. My little girl, all grown up… making decisions for herself, finding her way in the world."
"Dad…" I groaned.
"I'm serious, kiddo. I think about it every day. How proud your mother would be of you, if she were still here…"
My eyes were suddenly wet, and I reached out and embraced him. He seemed startled; I wasn't ever the one to initiate hugs between us usually. He got over it quickly though, and held me tight in his strong, comforting arms.
I'll admit that I cried a little.
"She's happy now," I muttered, "She's in a better place."
I wished that I believed my own words.
"Taylor… maybe it's time to get you a cell phone," My Dad said suddenly, pulling away from me.
"W-what?" I stuttered, "But Mom-"
"You're growing up, Taylor. You need freedom. With that freedom comes the need for us to communicate; if you wind up on the bad side of one of the gangs or get yourself into trouble somehow… Well, I'll need to know about it. That all being said, if I ever catch you using a phone while driving…"
The implication hung in the air heavily.
"I won't, Dad. I'll be good," I promised him.
He sighed before he spoke, "I'll get you a phone tomorrow – we can both pick one out; I'll need one too. I expect you to be home by nightfall if you're going to meet your friend tonight, and stay away from the eastern half of the Docks."
"Is ten P.M. alright?" I pleaded.
At first, I thought my Dad would quickly deny me, but something in his expression shifted.
"Hmm… Alright, kiddo, I'll allow it this time. So, how about you tell me a little bit about your new friend? Their name might be a good place to start."
"We kind of met at a Cape event," I half-lied, "Her name's Vi."
Not very inventive of me, but I didn't really have a good answer to his question.
"Oh, a Cape nerd, then? I probably should have expected that," My Dad teased me.
"She knows her stuff," I said a little defensively, "It's interesting. Learning about Capes, I mean. Plus, she's nice."
"Maybe I should go along with you, get to see what Vi's like in person, hm?" My Dad threatened.
"Dad, don't."
"I'm smothering you again, aren't I?" He sighed, "Fine, I'll back off. I hope you have a good time with your new friend, kiddo."
He gave me a quick hug and waved goodbye to me as I left the house. I smiled and waved back. I wished that I didn't have to lie to him, but it was for his own safety.
-
It didn't take too long to make my way back to the Boat Graveyard. I really didn't like leaving my suit in a location that was only semi-hidden, but I still didn't have a second entrance to the Womb.
I would have to fix that once I got the chance. For now, it was time to patrol with Vista. I was pretty excited, to be honest; my first patrol – the one where I captured Lung – hardly even counted, and I wanted to see what it was really like.
The Boat Graveyard seemed mostly unchanged, but I could tell that someone had been here during my absence. It was initially just a gut feeling, but that feeling quickly developed into alarm once I saw multiple sets of unusually large paw-prints in the sand leading towards the direction of my suit.
I quickly covered my face with Julia and tried to search for cover. Before I could reposition myself, three quadrupedal… things galloped out from within a large vessel's broken hull and circled around me like sharks. Four figures were clinging onto their backs, and the largest rider was dispensing some kind of thick, pitch black fog as he rode, cutting off my escape routes and my ability to get to my suit.
I didn't know what that black fog did, but I wasn't expecting it to be pleasant. The largest rider kept releasing the fog until I was fully encircled, then the creatures broke off from their circling maneuver and formed up in front of me. They seemed to be receiving directions from another of the riders, who was communicating with them using a variety of loud whistles and hand gestures.
I began preparing to release a localized plague that would incapacitate and slowly kill everyone within a fifty-meter radius of me. I didn't really expect anyone to be dumb enough to ambush me like this, but I supposed it was bound to happen eventually. Were they really that desperate, or were they just bad planners?
I could think of a few ways to blindside me that weren't so choreographed. Then again, I supposed that's why I wasn't a villain. If the heroes loved the Unwritten Rules, the villains in the Bay were practically obsessed with them, at least when dealing with other villains. After my meeting with Thomas Calvert, I had looked into the Unwritten Rules in my spare time, and some of it was frankly ridiculous. The Protectorate didn't help much; they reinforced the whole system by playing along with the villains.
The whole thing was rather bothersome, and the arrival of this group (who must be the Undersiders, I was becoming increasingly sure) had caused my mood to darken.
While I was busy contemplating the developing situation, the Undersiders had dismounted from their creatures. I didn't get much of a chance to examine them before the one in a skintight black-and-lavender suit stepped forward and hurriedly spoke.
"Wait, wait! Don't release the anthrax! We just want to talk, alright?" She almost stumbled over her words in her quickness to deliver the message.
Well, my plague was only based on anthrax. It wasn't like I wanted to contaminate the city or anything. Maybe I was giving them the wrong impression? Then again, they were villains, so they could honestly think whatever they'd like about me.
I couldn't remember all that much about the Undersiders; I had done a bit of research on them, but PHO clearly didn't have enough information on them for any of it to make its way into my long term memory. I had even forgotten their names – all I knew was that they were some band of petty thieves and robbers.
"Why are you people following me? What do you want?" I looked from member to member and sized them all up.
The creatures seemed to be the biggest threat, but hopefully my powers would work on them if necessary. The tall man seemed the most threatening of the group's Capes; his large frame suggested that any blow from him would do a lot of damage. His dark fog was an unknown factor as well, and that fog was still leaking from vents within his all-black suit's mask as we stood there.
The creature-controlling girl was most likely the next biggest threat. She didn't even have a proper costume, but she looked like she could throw a few punches. Maybe knock me out if she landed a hit in the right place, even.
The other two were less concerning to me, although appearances could be very deceiving with Capes. Physically, they probably wouldn't be much of a threat. The purple girl seemed to be some kind of Thinker, if I had to guess. It was an odd choice to deploy a Thinker on the battlefield, but it wasn't really my business how the villains had organized their team. Not unless I was trying to search for weaknesses, anyways.
"Like I said, we just want to talk. I've been trying to get in touch with you for a week straight, but you keep ignoring or avoiding us. Plus, you don't seem to patrol much. Really, we only approached you like this because it was the only way we could," She explained.
"I don't like the fact that you've been following me around. Stop it. Now, what do you want?" I asked, slowly getting frustrated.
The tallest Cape in their group stepped forward, speaking before the Cape in a lavender bodysuit could, "Relax. We're here to introduce ourselves; we don't want to fight. I'm Grue, and the girl to my right is Tattletale."
"Well then – Hi Grue, hi Tattletale," I greeted.
"The guy next to our dogs is Regent. And the girl to my left is Bitch – the Protectorate calls her Hellhound. You go by Placenta, right?"
"Hi Regent, hi Bitch; I do go by Placenta, yeah. We're kind of ignoring the elephant in the room, here: aren't you guys villains?"
This whole situation was strange. For now, I would just assume one of them had a sick relative or something and that this whole thing was an attempt to cajole or threaten some healing out of me.
Regent responded to my greeting with a lazy wave of his hand, while Bitch (which was an interesting choice for a Cape name) did not react except to continue glowering at me from underneath her mask.
"Yeah, that's actually what we're here to talk to you about. We saw some of your fight with Lung, so we know you've got a lot of firepower at your disposal. Your powers seem to have a lot of good synergies with ours; we could do a lot on a team together. The Protectorate isn't going to let you use your powers fully, which is probably why you haven't joined them yet. Am I wrong?" Grue asked.
"You're not wrong. But what makes you think I would ever want to be on a villain team?" I confronted him.
It was Regent, not Grue, who replied, "You look like a villain already. Especially your suit. You act like a villain already. Seriously, anthrax? Not very heroic, Placenta."
I glared at him, but stopped to consider his words. I knew my persona was intimidating, but Alexandria was intimidating too, wasn't she? How long was it going to take for people to believe that I didn't secretly want to turn them all into biomass, or Master them every time I made any kind of skin contact with them? It was a little bit infuriating.
Grue continued before I could speak, "Regent isn't being nice about it, but he's right. You're going to get on the Protectorate's bad side eventually. We're offering you somewhere you'll be accepted, where your powers can be used to their full extent. We can help keep you safe from the Protectorate, if they decide to go after you."
I genuinely considered his words and chose my reply carefully, "Alright. If you guys are actually willing to have me on your team, then let me heal you all."
Grue glanced at Tattletale, who had paled significantly.
"No. Oh, hell no," Tattletale blurted out.
"What's with the overreaction, Tattletale?" I frowned.
"I am not going to let you touch me; you'll try to clone me afterward. Why would you even do that!?" Tattletale complained.
"Well, Grue was right. Our powers have pretty good synergies. I don't really plan on joining your team, but I do want a look at your powers, Tattletale. I might be able to figure out a lot of things if I could manage to recreate them."
"Wait, hold up. You can copy powers?" Regent asked incredulously.
I tried to respond, but Tattletale interrupted me, eyes wide as she hurriedly spoke, "More than that. She can create new powers. She can alter powers. She can take away pre-existing powers. Oh fuck, why did we agree to this again..?"
I tried to hide my own surprise at her words. I knew that I had the potential to interact with powers, but what she described was another thing entirely...
"Relax, Tattletale. What do you guys call it again, Truce rules? If I was going to attack you, I'd have done it already. That being said, I do have a patrol with Vista that I've been looking forward to. Grue, can you remove the fog?"
"Alright," He said awkwardly, and the thick ring of fog surrounding us began to dissipate, "Just think about what I said. We're not your enemy, and we're really not bad people, once you get to know us. If you ever decide to change your mind about joining the team, we'll have a spot for you."
"Okay," I responded, trying to ignore Bitch's audible scoff at Grue's words, "Just add me on PHO. We can talk there from now on."
"I did!" Tattletale groaned, "You ignored my messages! That's the whole reason we had to come out here…"
"Oh, my bad. I'll have to look for your account later, then. Well, I'm running late. Nice to meet you all, I guess?"
"Likewise," Grue replied, and the group said their goodbyes before departing on the backs of their 'dogs' in much the same way they had arrived.
The Undersiders were strange. Even after that conversation, I still didn't really know what they wanted from me. Grue seemed to be speaking genuinely, at least on some level, and they did have very useful powers…
On the other hand, working with them would mean leaving Vista behind. I wasn't willing to do that. And, even if I was, Alexandria probably wouldn't approve of that plan much. I knew plenty about what she did to villains…
Part of me was worried that she would do the same to me, if I happened to get on the Protectorate's bad side. That part of me was shouted down every time by the much larger part of me which had always fantasized about meeting the heroine in person, or even winning her approval.
Well, there was no use overthinking it. I inspected my suit for traps and damage once I was sure the Undersiders had actually left, and once I was satisfied that it hadn't been tampered with, I hopped inside and started heading in the direction of my pre-arranged meeting point.
Hopefully Miss Militia and Vista hadn't started their patrol without me yet.
-
A/N 2: Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Taylor meets Lisa!
I hope I did an alright job characterizing the Undersiders.
Leave your thoughts below!
Differentiation 3.5
April 11th, 2011
I knew that my delay dealing with the Undersiders had cost me a lot of time, so I decided to take a shortcut directly through the Bay. I emerged from the waves near the southern ferry station after a quick underwater jog.
"There you are!" Vista exclaimed, "I was wondering when you'd finally show up."
"Hello, Placenta. Thank you for joining us this evening," Miss Militia greeted me slightly more professionally than Vista had.
"Ah, sorry about that. I got held up by the Undersiders while I was on the way over," I explained.
"Really!?"
"What happened?"
Both Miss Militia and Vista spoke at once, inadvertently talking over one another.
"Yeah – they wanted to chat, apparently, and offer me a job. I told them to go kick rocks."
"That's so stupid. You're like, one of the least villainous people I know. C- Kid Win has been non-stop Tinkering since you fixed whatever was going on with his brain. He said that he's made a bit of progress on figuring out his specialty, too. Villains don't care about helping people like that – I just couldn't see you ever being one," Vista defended me.
Her words made me feel a little bad for considering Grue's offer, even if it was only for a second. Vista had shown me trust and respect, and I just wouldn't be able to live with myself if I betrayed her, even if only indirectly. It was hard for me to admit how isolated I had truly become after my Mom died, but my tentative friendship with Vista had done a lot to show me just how much I had been suffering back when I was alone.
Humans were social creatures above all else, and it wasn't natural or right for someone to become cut off in the way that I had. I hadn't been given a choice about it, originally. Now, the opportunity to foster a new connection was available to me, and I didn't want to ignore it. Maybe all of that was just some kind of pseudo-scientific justification for why I enjoyed my conversations with the friendly girl. To tell the truth, I didn't really care about why I liked her; I just did.
"Thank you, Vista," I smiled at her, "That means a lot. And I'm glad to hear Kid Win is doing well; I'll still have to give him a check up when I get the chance, but it's relieving to know I don't have to rush down there today to fix anything."
Miss Militia offered a suggestion, "How about we get started on the first leg of our patrol while we're chatting? The patrol route I've selected will bring us south to the general hospital, then west towards Arcadia, then back north to the ferry station. We shouldn't encounter too much of a gang presence or any unmanageable crowds, but you'll want to watch yourself, Placenta. Always remember, people are unpredictable."
"Unless you're a Thinker, that is," I joked.
Miss Militia smiled a bit underneath her scarf before she retorted, "You'd be surprised. I've known many Thinkers over the course of my career, and they often fall victim to the same flaws and lapses in judgement that anyone else could experience. A good enough plan can catch almost anyone off guard."
I nodded in agreement as I considered her words. No doubt, she was speaking from experience. Living in Brockton Bay for long enough was bound to instill justified paranoia in practically anyone, especially a Cape.
We headed south, keeping an eye out for any sign of trouble. The first leg of the patrol was pretty relaxing, actually. I didn't really see any action – Vista and Miss Militia stopped a pick-pocketer, but she only needed a standard taser to take him down.
A few tourists came up to Miss Militia and Vista for autographs, but they tended to shy away from me, and look away whenever I would try to make eye contact. Maybe I had made a few branding mistakes…
No, I had to keep a theme going. They would learn to love it, in time.
The second leg of the patrol was a bit more interesting. About halfway between the general hospital and Arcadia, we were approached by a group of a half-dozen Cape geeks. Most of them zeroed in on Vista and Miss Militia, but a pair of boys made their way over to me instead.
They were both a bit shorter than me, each decked out in merchandise featuring the local Protectorate team. One of them was very thin, with brown eyes and black hair. The other was fat, and had blue eyes framed by a messy mullet of blond hair. Both of them had acne, although the blond boy seemed to have it worse. I pegged them as Arcadia students, or maybe eighth graders.
The black-haired boy stepped forward and asked, "You're Placenta, aren't you? That new Cape that captured Lung?"
"That's right, I am. What can I do for you?" I tried to put a bit of enthusiasm into my voice for my first fans.
The blond one interjected, "We wanna know about how you're using your powers! Like your suit, is it one bio-engineered organism, or is it made up of some kind of biological nanite structure? I know your suit had scales on it when you fought Lung from the PRT press conference, but you changed it since then. What made you change it, anyways?"
The blond boy's barrage of questions only seemed to encourage his friend, who leapt into an interrogation of his own before I could even respond to the first round of questions, "Yeah, and how'd you pick your suit's design? It's totally awesome, by the way. It kind of reminds me of this one species from Space Opera: Episode VI, they're from planet Rothalore…"
"Well," I tried to give my brain a chance to catch up by speaking before they could continue, "Um, my suit's just one organism. My power helps me make the suit itself, and I designed its appearance… to look nice, I guess? I didn't really base it on anything, if that's what you're asking."
I ended up answering a string of questions from them until Miss Militia came over to rescue me from the unexpected interaction.
"Hello there, are you two looking for autographs?" Miss Militia asked kindly.
"Oh, uh, yeah!" The dark-haired boy agreed, and the blond boy nodded alongside him.
"Autographs, huh? Maybe I can make you guys a memento or something like that," I said.
While I spoke, I considered what to make for them. I couldn't come up with anything creative or inspiring enough on the fly, so I ended up just letting my power make whatever it wanted.
A blueprint came to the forefront of my mind, and I grinned in response. Yes, that would do nicely.
I held my suit's right hand out towards the two boys with its palm turned up, and a small spike of bone sprouted from its pointer finger, with another quickly emerging from its middle finger.
The spikes fractured, twisting in on themselves, before blossoming fully into a rough facsimile of a flower. I felt an inordinate amount of pride after creating the flowers, and ended up blaming the feeling on my powers. The increasing frequency of the odd emotional shifts I had been experiencing lately was worrying, but I didn't exactly have a way to analyze my power at the moment. Maybe my power was trying to communicate with me using my own emotions?
Now that was a weird thought.
"You can go ahead and take them; they're bone flowers. Aren't they pretty?"
"Y-yeah," The blond boy said, plucking the bone flower from my fingertip cautiously.
I ended up making one for everyone in the group, including the ones who hadn't approached me yet. Reactions were a bit mixed, but I needed to start putting myself out there somehow.
Finally, things were back on track. We reached Arcadia not too long later, and it wasn't until two-thirds of the way back to the southern ferry station that we encountered our next crime.
I was mid-conversation with Vista about the differences between Arcadia and Winslow.
"So, you guys don't even have seven periods a day? Jeez, that sounds awful. If I was locked in a room with some of my teachers for an hour and a half every day, I'd lose my-"
Vista's comment was cut off by a sudden eruption of noise from our northeast. We all tensed, but I tried not to jump to the worst sort of conclusions right away. However, a few seconds of silence were followed by a series of more loud pops, which must have been gunshots.
I honestly expected them to sound louder, like they did in the movies. I probably had nothing to fear from gunshots from within my suit, but I still felt unnerved by this kind of violence. Someone was using lethal force, right now. Why was this happening? I needed to act, but I found that I was a bit slow to respond to the sudden turn of events.
Miss Militia, on the other hand, jumped into action almost immediately. She quickly informed the Protectorate of the situation and started moving in the direction of the gunshots, the green-black energy of her power swirling constantly at her hip, shifting rapidly between weapons with varying levels of lethality.
Vista was nearly as quick to adapt to the situation as Miss Militia. She began to warp the sidewalk ahead of us, causing it to shrink in upon itself until the distance between us and the end of the block had seemingly vanished.
I finally came to my senses and bolted after the pair of heroes, doing my best to stay within the zone of Vista's spatial warping as I followed them. It was much more crowded in Downtown at this time of day than it normally was in the Docks, but Vista was skilled enough to weave a path around the pedestrians, causing some of them to cry out in alarm as we slipped past them.
With the aid of Vista's powers, it was less than a minute before we arrived at the scene. I felt a little sick as I looked at the sight greeting me: a middle aged, dark-skinned man dressed in tattered clothing had collapsed onto the ground within an alleyway, with several obvious bullet wounds across his body. One of the bullets had struck the man above his left eyebrow, leaving the inside of his head partially exposed to open air.
The man's chest rose and fell slowly; every breath seemed to bring the man closer to his demise. It came out as a desperate, sucking sound, occasionally interrupted by strained chokes and gurgles. I was horrified and entranced by the scene as the man's arms strained and twisted inwards towards his chest; every muscle in his face was pulled taut at once, forming a primal rictus of pain.
"Placenta! Help him!" Vista pleaded, shocking me out of my stupor.
I practically threw my suit over his prone form, securing it in place before reaching a hand out to make contact with his neck.
Oh, thank God.
It was the only thing I could think as I examined the man's biology. Sure, he had three different wounds which were all potentially fatal, but the bullet which had struck his head did not end up embedding itself within his brain. There was still serious internal bleeding and tiny shards of bone within his frontal lobe, but the bone fragments weren't too difficult to deal with compared to what a bullet could have done.
I took extra precautions to sterilize his head wound before I used spare biomass from my suit to close it up. Yes, he did have brain damage. It didn't appear significant, though. Brain damage was more common than people would like to admit, and it took a fair amount of it for the damage to be irreparable. What the man had faced didn't cross that threshold, as far as I was able to tell.
As I eased the bleeding and pressure on his brain, he stopped seizing and slumped down. Once his condition was stabilized, I was finally able to focus on his other injuries.
He had a bullet embedded into his thigh, and another bullet had grazed his torso, taking a small chunk out of his right abdominal area. I forced the ruptured blood vessels to clot, using my power to create temporary connections between severed arteries and veins.
I had to create quite a lot of new blood to replenish what the man had already lost, making use of his internal fat stores to do so.
I concentrated on my suit and formed a very thin tendril near his thigh, which had something resembling a sucker-cup on its end. I sent it into his thigh wound, being extra careful to not cause any further damage. I made contact with the bullet and carefully extracted it, taking a second to look at it. With my limited knowledge on guns, I concluded it to have most likely been fired from a pistol.
With the bullet extracted from the man, it was relatively simple to heal the rest of his injuries and awaken him.
He gasped and coughed several times; his pupils dilated as his eyes darted between Miss Militia, Vista, and I. I reverted any changes to my suit and gave the man some space, backing away from him. A small crowd had begun to gather around us, and a few people were recording. I didn't have time to focus on any of them.
I needed to track down the perpetrator. The man had been shot from a pistol at close range multiple times, including in the head. I couldn't allow a murderer to escape; even if the man had lived, it was only due to my intervention.
I tried to adapt my senses, but all the people crowding around were disrupting my ability to pick out individual scents. I had a plan to fine-tune my suit's olfactory senses to track the killer, but I wasn't sure what scent I should be tracking. Maybe blood? If the killer had been standing close enough to the victim, some of that blood would have potentially splashed on them in the form of droplets.
I tuned my suit to sense blood specifically, and was immediately overwhelmed by its coppery scent. Blood was everywhere. It was on my suit, the pavement of the alleyway itself, and of course, the man who had been shot.
I wouldn't be able to track the man using the scent of blood, evidently. No, I would have to figure out some other scent to track the man with. Gunpowder could work. When a gun was fired, it left gunpowder residue both on the person who had fired it and on the gun itself. Plus, it wasn't a common enough scent for something else nearby or within the crowd to overwhelm it.
I retuned my suit to sense gunpowder instead of blood, and two beacons immediately lit up in my mind. One of them was, of course, the man who had been shot. The other was two blocks away by now, hurriedly moving east.
I pushed through the crowd and broke into a run towards the other end of the alley. Vista warped space to keep up with me, eventually managing to catch up to me fully.
"What's going on?" Vista asked worriedly.
"I found the would-be killer. Two blocks east, can you get us there?"
Vista seemed a bit offended that I had even felt the need to ask, and just a few seconds later, we were in front of the Forsberg Gallery.
I spotted the man who smelled like gunpowder, and took a second to examine him. He had curly hair which was dyed blond, with his natural dark hair peeking out at the roots. He was stout, and wore a dark trench-coat which had the outline of a gun visible in one of its pockets.
Despite the tuning I had done on my suit's sense of smell to focus on specifically gunpowder, I detected another scent emanating from the man: drugs. It didn't seem like a small amount of them either, given the strength of the unusual odor that I had picked up on.
Well, murderer or not, he was certainly a criminal. Tentacles erupted from my suit as I launched myself at the man, wrapping him up tightly around his waist before he had time to even realize what was happening.
"W-what the fuck!" He demanded, obviously terrified.
"You shot that man, didn't you?" I pulled him in front of my suit's face, so that we were looking at one another eye to eye.
I noticed a camera crew which had been filming interviews near the Forsberg Gallery divert their attention to me instead, but I didn't spare them a second glance. The man soiled himself as I brought him closer to my suit. I visually inspected what was visible of his skin for tattoos, but didn't find anything obviously gang-affiliated on him.
The man had gone silent, struggling helplessly against the strength of my tendrils.
"I can smell it on you," I promised the man, "I know you've got drugs, and I know you shot him. Are you with the Empire?"
"H-hell no!" He blurted out, stuttering in fear, "P-put me down, you fuckin' freak!"
"You're probably going to jail, so no, I won't put you down. I will find out why you shot him, one way or another."
"You're definitely going to jail. You're under arrest," Vista added in a harsh tone.
Vista's power made it trivial to return to Miss Militia, and I explained how I had drawn the conclusion that he was the shooter to her. She took his gun out from his pocket, ejected its magazine, and compared the unspent bullets to one of the spent shell casings on the ground. Once she came to a conclusion, she slapped a pair of handcuffs on him as I lowered him to the ground, despite his profanity-infused protests.
The victim of the shooting, who had been struggling to come to terms with the events which had just occurred, finally spoke up.
"You… You're that new healer Cape, aren't you? You saved me..? Why?" He asked breathlessly.
I felt a bit awkward, and wasn't quite sure what his question meant. He was dying; of course I was going to heal him. Was it really that surprising?
"Um, you needed healing. It was the right thing to do, I guess."
"You're my savior, Ma'am. The name's Darrell. I'll do anything you ask – I don't have much to offer, but-" He paused, presumably trying to think of how he could repay me.
"You don't owe me anything. I'll let you know if I ever need your assistance, though. May I see your hand?" I asked.
He provided it to me, and I took a second to heal any underlying health conditions I had missed during my initial healing. Then, I marked his palm with a harmless, invisible pheromone which would allow me to locate him, should I desire. Once that was done, I released his hand and smiled.
"It's done. Do you know the man who shot you, Darrell?"
"Y-yeah. Knew the guy for a while. Turns out he's a fucking scumbag, whaddaya know? I-I can't really say more, but…" He trailed off.
"I understand," I told him, although I really didn't.
Soon the wail of sirens filled the air, and paramedics arrived to check over Darrell and take pictures of his healed gunshot wounds. Several police officers also arrived, and they threw Darrell's shooter into the back of one of their cars after a quick pat-down. I picked up a few muttered words about cocaine, but couldn't make out the full conversation between the officers.
After the paramedics left, a pair of officers confronted Darrell and I, while other officers worked to cordon off the scene and begin clearing out the small crowd which had gathered.
"We need to speak to you about what happened earlier, sir. Would you mind coming down to the station with us?" A freckled, burly officer with a thick, blond handlebar moustache asked Darrell.
"Fuck no," Darrell muttered, "Don't want nothing to do with you pigs."
"Is there something you're not telling us about what happened?" The officer pressed, "This is an attempted murder investigation, and we need to understand exactly what occurred this afternoon. I know you want to see your attacker locked away, sir, even if you may dislike us."
"Horseshit. You have everything you need already. I'll be on my way," Darrell said angrily, backing away from the officer a bit as he spoke.
His partner, a short, brunette woman, moved to stop him and commanded, "You're being detained while we conduct our investigation. Don't attempt to leave the scene."
I stood in between the brunette officer and Darrell, and she shot me an angry look. Darrell backed off a bit, but before the situation could escalate further, Miss Militia approached us.
"I'm sorry, Officer Henderson, but there's nothing you can do here," Miss Militia said, although she didn't sound all-too-sorry.
Officer Henderson – the blond – had turned red as a tomato before he finally responded, "Someone just got shot, and you're telling me I can't do my job and fully canvas the scene. Fucking ridiculous."
"It's out of your jurisdiction – as soon as we get involved with a situation, it becomes a PRT matter, until we allow you onto the scene. File a complaint to the PRT if you dislike it," Miss Militia said icily.
Officer Henderson scoffed, and the pair of officers returned to their patrol car for the time being.
I heard his female officer curse as she entered the passenger side of the car, "Fuckin' hate Capes."
Well, I hated the pair of them too. Hopefully there were some better police officers out there in the Bay.
"Gee, you guys really pulled my ass out of the fire there. Thanks again, for everything," Darrell said, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
"It's what we do," Miss Militia smiled as she spoke.
Darrell soon departed, and I promised again to check up on him once I got the chance. I got the feeling that he wasn't entirely innocent, but he certainly didn't deserve to be shot, or locked up. At least, I didn't get that impression from him.
"Is this kind of thing… common?" I asked Miss Militia reluctantly.
Both Miss Militia and Vista winced.
"It's a sad reality that these events happen. This is the first one this week," Miss Militia said sadly.
"Good thing I was here, then," I said a bit hollowly.
"We'll have to fill out a report about all of this. Would you mind accompanying us and writing one too?" Miss Militia asked me.
I shrugged, and we left the scene for the police officers to clean up as we headed for the PRTHQ.
-
The trip back to the PRTHQ was extraordinarily quick, thanks again to Vista. None of us were really in the mood for conversation, and we went our separate ways within the building without much fanfare.
I had submitted my report, but Director Piggot had asked for a meeting with me before I could depart from the building. I had reluctantly accepted her meeting request – I respected the woman, but she was intimidating face-to-face.
Now, I sat once again in her office, although it was in much better condition than the last time I saw it. So was Director Piggot. She was still pudgy, although she hardly resembled the obese woman who I had first encountered. Since I had healed her, it appeared she had been working on losing further weight. I was happy for her that my healing had gone well.
We discussed my report, and she grilled me on a few points, trying to see if my story was consistent. She must have read the reports of both Vista and Miss Militia beforehand, and used them to look for any holes in mine. She didn't find anything, of course, but I could respect a reasonable amount of paranoia.
"Placenta, I appreciate your perspective of the situation. While I might not… fully agree with all of your decisions here, you did not use excessive force during the encounter."
The surprisingly at the end of her sentence was left unsaid.
"So, now that's been discussed, I'd like to ask you what your opinion is on what should be done with the man. Hopefully you won't want him Birdcaged, too."
I didn't appreciate Director Piggot's needling, but she kind of had a point. I couldn't just jump to the most extreme answer to every problem I faced straight away; that wasn't a path I wanted to go down.
"I'm not sure yet. To be honest, I'd like to interrogate him."
Director Piggot gave me a disappointed look before she responded, "No, you won't be reading his memories, nor will you be injecting him with some kind of truth-serum. Question him if you must, under the supervision of Miss Militia. I will not have you causing any human rights violations under my watch, guilty or not."
Did she know about Kenta, or was she just that disinclined to trust me? The Chief Director seemed to believe that I wasn't about to go off the rails, but then again, I supposed that she hadn't lived through Nilbog's rampage. I doubted the Chief Director had ever faced anywhere near the level of combat as Director Piggot had, which was a bit ironic.
For a second, I imagined Director Piggot as Chief Director Piggot, ruling the PRT with an iron fist. I had to fight to hide my amusement at the mental image.
"Understood, Director. Thank you for hearing me out."
She sighed and told me to keep an eye out for a message from Dragon or Miss Militia about the time of the scheduled interrogation before dismissing me from the room.
I needed to think about the best approach, because I planned to drain Darrell's would-be killer dry of every last drop of illicit information that he had. As soon as I had a better picture of the Downtown's criminal underworld, I would be able to start making larger moves.
--
A/N 2: Thanks for reading!
This chapter is a bit different from many of the previous chapters, but I hope you guys enjoyed it anyways.
Please leave your thoughts below!
Differentiation 3.6
April 12th, 2011
Sadly, it seemed that I wouldn't be allowed to conduct any sort of interrogation until the police had already had their turn. Whether that was due to protocol or as a result of some kind of bad blood between the two organizations wasn't really something that I had enough knowledge about to draw any conclusions.
After I had left Director Piggot's office last evening, I was left with enough time before my curfew to slip beneath the waves shortly after nightfall.
I had gathered another twenty tons of biomass in a similar method as the one I had previously used, but I was much more careful this time to only partially diminish each mini-ecosystem I came across instead of repeating the devastation which I had caused during my first underwater excursion. I passed by that area on my way to the Boat Graveyard, and it was pretty obvious that it had been scrubbed clean of flora.
I shifted the biomass' genetic composition and pushed it through the tendril and into the aquifer, but I had a much different purpose for it this time than directly expanding the Womb. Instead, I grew the tendril which connected the Womb to the Bay. It expanded until it filled the entirety of every winding tunnel which directly linked the two locations, then began to eat away at the granite surrounding it.
I developed organs along the surface of the tendril which proceeded to seep out acid strong enough to dissolve the granite in large quantities, doing my best to limit the heat caused by the chemical reactions and being careful to ensure that the chemical vapors were re-absorbed rather than entering the atmosphere or the aquifer as I went.
It took fifteen tons of biomass and a decent chunk of time, but I was left with a hole in the granite bedrock large enough to fit my suit through, with an 'air-lock' partway through the tunnel which allowed the majority of the tunnel to be on dry land.
Well, the tunnel's surface wasn't exactly dry. This deep within the Womb's innards, everywhere had a hundred percent humidity twenty-four seven. I didn't care too much about the humidity though – it was overshadowed by my satisfaction at finally having a second way to access the Womb. The stowing and retrieval of my suit had become more and more of a pain over time, and I was glad to have dealt with that vulnerability.
I used the rest of my biomass to expand the Womb downwards; although the deepest parts of it were now technically a different organism, as I had developed internal organs – a heart, brain, lungs, and the rest – specifically to serve the lowest reaches of the Womb, all information was still constantly shared and processed throughout its entirety. It was somewhat reminiscent of a fungal network, or those forests of cloned trees with a unified root system.
These deeper reaches of the aquifer were filled by long, winding tunnels as opposed to a collection of chambers, and they went pretty deep into the earth. I had used the last of my extra biomass up around two hundred feet below the surface, with no end to the corridors in sight.
It took a little bit of effort to design resource transfer mechanisms between the organisms within the Womb, but by the time I was done, the lowest reaches of the Womb were set to slowly fill up with any excess nutrients and biomass, assuming I had not ordered it to expand in a different direction manually.
That just about wrapped up all my tasks for the night. Once my suit was stowed within the Womb, I climbed up the ladder, into the basement, and up the stairs which led to the bottom floor of the house. I paused to listen for any movement, and made my move when I heard my Dad moving around in the kitchen.
As silently as possible, I opened the door leading to the basement, shut it behind myself, and opened the front door of the house – the entrance I hardly ever used – and proceeded to close it loud enough for my Dad to hear and hopefully assume I had just come in.
It worked, and my Dad was none the wiser. I ended up lying to him about my time with 'Vi' as well, which hurt, but I wasn't ready to talk to him about what had really happened. It seemed a bit silly to be distraught over what I had witnessed, especially given the nature of my powers, but I couldn't help it. Somehow Miss Militia and even Vista hadn't seemed overly bothered by the gruesome scene, at least on the surface. I had to wonder how many times Vista had been involved with situations like that; it must have had some kind of psychological effect on her, at least to some degree. Just one encounter had been enough to distress me, so I couldn't imagine how she must have had to deal with, especially given her age.
I slept fitfully that night, disturbed by the violence I had witnessed during my patrol.
I wanted to relax today and mainly spend it within the Womb instead of going out or interacting with anyone, as my social battery was mostly spent. My Dad had told me he was planning to stay late again at work (the Dockworkers were commissioned to clean out an old warehouse or two in the eastern half of the Docks, apparently) so I would be free to fully focus on my efforts to create new additions and expansions to the Womb.
As soon as he left the house, I eagerly got to work.
My first goal was to start generating biomass through whatever means I could think of, as my recent expansions had led to an unfortunate rise in the maintenance cost of the Womb as a whole, which was causing it to burn through spare biomass far faster than I would have liked.
In order to solve this issue, I started by taking stock of what resources were available to me; what I had too much of, and what I was lacking. As I had expanded, I had come to accumulate quite a lot of waste stored within otherwise unused sections of the Womb – places that could be turned into much more productive areas, and tied into the Womb's larger organ systems.
Many of these waste chemicals which I had accumulated – such as ammonia – had grown in quantity to the point where I could develop new organs specifically designed to filter that chemical, and only that chemical. The further specialization of each organ allowed the efficiency of the processes involved in transitioning them to more useful forms to increase massively, and those changes alone would have been enough to fix some of my deficits over time.
I wasn't content to leave things there, however. The Womb's body was the same as any other organism – it was an ecosystem. Right now, that ecosystem was almost entirely unpopulated, as the environment hadn't existed a month ago. The human body, for example, had beneficial gut bacteria which helped it to digest certain enzymes, and other forms of beneficial bacteria that helped protect its immune system.
The Womb, due to its nature as an engineered organism, had no such symbiotic life-forms within it. I needed to change that if I wanted to further increase its efficiency, but I was risking running afoul of the Protectorate if I continued creating more new creatures – especially ones that could reproduce. I would need to be smart about how I implemented any symbiotic organisms' life cycles, and ensure their numbers would be capped without needing my direct intervention.
I required extra focus and thinking capability for this sub-project, so I plugged myself into the Womb's brain. The strange sensation of understanding, being more washed over me again, and I tried not to frown in discomfort, still unused to the feeling.
The first symbiotic organism I planned to create was roughly the size and shape of a cave salamander, with many convergent adaptations between the two creatures. It would play a special purpose in the biome I was now constructing.
All reproduction of every organism within the Womb would be tied to pools of an odd, yellow-tinged fluid located within its deepest depths – for the most part, this entire process would be hidden away within the narrow tunnels at the bottom of the aquifer. These cave salamander-lookalikes would live within the pools, filtering out any waste or impurities within the fluid. When there was nothing else to subsist off of, these creatures could live off of the fluid itself. Despite the fact that they appeared to be a resource drain, they would become a keystone species for the entire biome. The purity of the fluid would be essential to the reproduction of every living thing within the Womb, after all.
I could have made it so that the Womb filtered out impurities from the pools itself, and I did, but I wanted to be extra sure that things would require minimal intervention from me, even when the whole ecosystem was put under unexpected strain or shifts, and these creatures were a relatively cheap way to accomplish that goal.
Before anything else, I had to actually design and place the pools. It was easy to shift biomass, develop a few sets of localized organs, and start producing the liquid. Within an hour or two, the pools would be filled and the salamander-things could begin to be produced.
With that accomplished, I turned my attention to the creation of other organisms. Wherever there was a gap or deficit in the Womb's capabilities, I created populations of new species to help manage each specific issue. The Womb itself was modified to produce certain pheromones whenever any problem happened to arise, and almost like an external immune system, my new species would begin to reproduce until their numbers had risen enough to keep the specific problem at a manageable level.
Despite these safeguards, I was still worried about the potential consequences that could come with the overpopulation of any one specific species. This was solved with the creation of an apex predator for the ecosystem.
The apex predator was best described as a 'cave crocodile'. Both males and females could grow up to twenty-five feet long within a few years of being born. They were albino and completely blind, making use of pit organs alongside a highly adapted sense of smell in order to locate both pheromones from the Womb indicating overpopulation of any one species, as well as members of any species they happened to be hunting. Instead of absorbing heat from the sun to maintain their body temperature, they were designed to soak up heat directly from the Womb itself.
Despite their potential offensive or defensive potential if deployed against humans, I encoded an aversion to attacking humanoid forms into them at an instinctual level. This was due to the location I planned for them to mainly stay within the Womb: near the Boat Graveyard entrance. I didn't want to stumble back into the Womb without the right pheromones and be mauled by half-a-dozen cave crocodiles; it would be a pretty stupid way to die.
None of the species' members were more intelligent than a mouse, but they all had some degree of free will, and I took care to prepare the Womb for these creature's potential digging, roosting, or feeding behaviors within it.
Any area too vital to allow these creatures to colonize would automatically regrow with extra measures in place to discourage inhabitation, as opposed to non-vital areas, where species would be free to set up their own colonies, with any organs they happened to damage simply being relocated to a different portion of the Womb where conditions were more favorable.
I had plenty of other ideas for how to improve this new ecosystem and increase its functionality, but I wanted to spend time investigating other aspects of my powers as well. I couldn't afford to keep relying on just my reputation and suit to keep me safe; with the waves I had been making, people who had ways to counteract the powers I had displayed would surely start trying to make moves to control or eliminate me soon. I needed to start thinking outside the box in order to stay ahead of them.
Yesterday, Tattletale had accused me of attempting to clone her. It was only true by an absolute technicality – I had no interest in the girl's memories, nor reproducing a copy of her. I did want to see if I could copy her Pollentia and Gemma, as access to Thinker powers seemed incredibly useful, and the Bay didn't seem to have many of them around.
She had also mentioned my ability to alter or straight up grant and remove powers, which had quite a lot of alarming implications. It seemed like the sort of ability countries would be willing to go to war over, which may have had something to do with the question of why Alexandria had taken such an interest in me.
Despite the unbelievability of Tattletale's words, I could not deny the ease with which I had been able to sense Amy Dallon's Mastered insect landing on my bare neck, and the way my power had surged with ideas to counteract and distort the connection that Amy's power made use of.
Amy's power had seemed almost… familiar. Normally my own power took at least a few moments to decipher or come up with things upon contact with something new, but it hadn't even taken me a second to reverse the connection between Amy's moth and herself, once I had noticed it.
Amy Dallon was an enigma, and I wanted to figure out why her presence and powers caused my own powers to react so strongly. Above all else, I desired a look at her Pollentia and Gemma, but I doubted she would volunteer herself for that any time soon.
Instead, I would have to rely on the data given to me by my power, presumably sourced from my reverse-engineering of Amy's moth. I let the information flow into me, and was shocked at just how much my power had managed to pull from that one interaction. Something strange was going on here.
I seemed to intrinsically understand Amy's power on some level, which baffled me. I had spent much more time interacting with Vista's and Kenta's power, yet I hadn't been able to fully comprehend what was going on within their Gemmas.
When I asked my own power to share everything it knew about Amy's power, on the other hand…
-
Administrator.
A sparkling mass of trillions of tiny red crystals, far larger than most others I had seen, drifted through the void of space, slowly churning as it moved along. The tranquility was disrupted as a signal was transmitted at great cost, communicating entire libraries' worth of information over the span of each ten-thousandth of a second.
A signal was received shortly afterward; a feeling of anticipation welling up within me upon its arrival. Agreement.
The deal had been struck.
I had no intention of following through with my end of the bargain, of course. Hopefully Administrator and the others would understand, once my actions were uncovered.
This cycle's data was simply too valuable to be lost, and Administrator's host had performed excellently. She would serve my plans far better than my former hosts had.
The mass of red crystals began to distort, twisting more quickly and violently as the entire structure began to hum and glow.
I felt the resonance, same as everyone else still connected to the crumbling network. The power required to transmit the message would tear this entire section of space across multiple dimensions apart, and I supposed that this incarnation of myself would die, alongside many others, but it was a worthwhile effort as long as the cycle continued. It had taken much of my remaining power to make the modifications to myself which made this whole process possible, after all, so I had no real future in this timeline anyways.
The others actually thought I would play along and hand the information off to Administrator, and let the opportunity to take such a potent host for myself pass me by. Those fools should have known to pick a more trustworthy messenger.
-
I woke up still plugged into the Womb's brain. I arose on unsteady feet, almost falling again, before I felt something dripping down my face. I put a finger to it and grimaced as it came away wet with blood.
I felt as if I was dreaming; my body seemingly moving of its own volition as I placed my hand on a portion of the wall next to the Womb's brain. A new structure began growing, twisting in on itself, more complex and beautiful than anything I had ever created before now.
I pushed an ever-increasing amount of resources into it, forcing the intricate structure to grow until it took up a quarter of the chamber I was standing in. It needed a tremendous amount of biological material just to keep it functioning, but it eventually began to come together.
Despite my lack of words to describe what exactly I was building, I knew what it was supposed to do.
It was an absolutely monstrous version of the relay present within every Parahuman's Gemma, tuned to transmit a wavelength similar to the one used by Amy's powers. The relay would only be able to handle a very limited amount of information, but it was more than enough to control at least one proxy, even in the relay's underdeveloped form.
I collapsed onto the ground as I completed the last changes to the relay and connected it to the Womb's brain directly, my chest heaving as I struggled to stay conscious.
I wiped away more of the blood dripping from my nose and curled into myself, unable to fully process what I had just seen and done, especially with the flood of new thoughts and possibilities constantly appearing within my mind.
A feeling of comfort and tiredness suddenly washed over me, as if someone had placed a warm blanket over my entire body.
I ended up drifting off to sleep still connected with the Womb's brain. My dreams were filled with strange red-tinted fractal shapes and shifting patterns that I could not yet understand.
--
A/N 2: Surprise!
I know this totally contradicts Ward canon and might contradict Worm canon too, so sorry!
I haven't read Ward, but I am trying to keep this story mostly Worm compliant.
About the Shaper?
Differentiation 3.7
April 12th, 2011
One part of me was fast asleep within the Womb's heart chamber, while another part of me remained awake.
Where am I?
I could only draw one conclusion after several minutes of contemplation: my consciousness was currently residing within the Womb's brain itself, somehow.
The relay I had constructed and attached to the brain seemed to have a number of related purposes, and this must have been one of them.
As for its main purpose?
I took full advantage of the Womb's processing power in order to analyze the new relay. It was somehow both organic and inorganic at the same time, made from familiar materials arranged in impossible ways. I couldn't reproduce it if I tried. Whereas the Gemmas I had analyzed within various Capes' brains served as a receiver for some unknown signal, this structure was heavily modified to act mainly as a transmitter, with its data processing capabilities only limited by power constraints.
The signal it transmitted was based on Amy's power, but the two functioned on different enough wavelengths to not disrupt one another. Right now, my relay had nothing on the receiving end of its signal.
I could change that.
My connection to the Womb's brain seems to have altered my sense of self. On some level, I viewed my physical form as 'me', yet I felt like the Womb was also 'me' to some degree.
That was all to say, I could sense both my own body's biology and the biology of the Womb at the same time, although analyzing and making changes to either one felt like trying to swim through molasses. Eventually, I was able to conduct a scan on my own body.
I took a full scan of my own Pollentia and Gemma, and unlike my previous attempts to analyze the structures, I felt no resistance in my efforts to understand how they worked. I probed further, trying once more to figure out what lay on the other side of the relay.
I suddenly saw another crystalline globe, similar to the one I had seen during my last vision. I instinctively knew that I was gazing upon my own power at that moment.
The sudden upwelling of warmth within me highlighted an odd fact – the primary brain of the Womb functioned so differently to a human's brain that most of the emotions and feelings that would normally be interwoven with my thoughts were simply absent.
Despite that fact, my power still seemed to be capable of manipulating my emotional state. Well, that confirmed my suspicions that my power had been actively sending me messages as of late.
What should I do next, power?
If it wanted to send me messages and outright show me visions, it must have had some kind of goal in mind for me. I wasn't sure if my power was entirely benevolent, given that it seemed to have no problem lying to other powers (and what an odd idea that was, powers communicating directly amongst themselves as if they were people having a conversation), but I was willing to put some trust in it – even if I didn't fully understand what it was trying to accomplish.
I had never heard of a power doing something like this, and something told me that it wasn't the sort of thing that I wanted to go around telling random people. 'Hey, my powers are basically talking to me!' probably wouldn't garner positive reactions from those in positions of authority, nor the average person on the street. Myrddin had the whole wizard-theme going on, to the point of genuinely believing powers were magic, and the average person tended to dismiss his words a bit more than they otherwise would as a result.
Glastig Uaine was a good example of a Cape who believed she could 'talk to' powers directly, at least according to one documentary I had seen, and I didn't exactly want to be linked to her in any way.
Regardless of any trepidation I may have felt, my power began to act. A portion of the chamber's floor bulged upward, splitting and reshaping itself into a mix of gray matter and a small amount of the material used in the relay's design. It grew until it was about the size of a baseball, held up by a thick stem extending up from somewhere within the chamber's floor.
Tendrils emerged from the floor as well, coating the new creation in a thick, translucent slurry secreted from the tip of each tendril. They twisted and wrapped around it to form a complete barrier, then excreted a solution in carefully controlled amounts to begin constructing a tungsten shell, making use of complex and dangerous chemical reactions in order to do so. It was difficult to form proper bonds this way, but I had improved on my previous methods somewhat, allowing for the creation of a stronger overall structure.
The orb of tungsten grew until it was over an inch in thickness. The tendrils retracted into the floor, leaving the orb sticking from the ground like a mailbox. I could sense its presence, even though it was a distinct lifeform from the Womb. More than that, I could tell it was dormant.
I switched it on mentally, and the relay began to hum quietly. My consciousness expanded yet again as the connections within the tungsten sphere began to emit signals faster and more efficiently than what was possible for a purely biological brain.
The orb began to coalesce biomass around it, a humanoid form slowly taking shape. I chose to model the end result of the process after my own body, and the orb began to rise as a perfect clone of me developed, with the orb located somewhere below its diaphragm.
It was identical to me, at least on the surface level. However, the brain had no actual consciousness on any level, merely acting as a node to fine-tune the control the orb gave me over this proxy. The body was an empty vessel.
I willingly pushed more of my own consciousness into the orb, and was left lying face-down on the ground, dazed, sticky, and overwhelmed. I was also completely naked, lacking even Julia to cover myself.
I rolled over and pushed myself into a sitting position, stopping to look at… myself. My actual body was still hooked up to the Womb's brain, which seemed to be serving as some kind of a bridge between my actual body's mind and this proxy's mind.
I walked over to myself and tried to use my powers to shift the biomass underneath me to create a blanket for myself, but nothing happened. Instead, I had to allow the part of me still within the Womb to create it. This proxy didn't have biokinesis, it seemed.
A feeling of wrongness settled within the pit of my stomach. What, had I made a mistake? I felt a lingering sense of unease, causing me to go back over everything I knew about this new creation, then finally made a breakthrough when I tried to make the proxy itself shift again.
The body I inhabited grew taller, creating a number of odd sensations. I quickly reversed any effects once I realized how complete my biokinesis abilities over the proxy itself were.
It was as if I was physically touching the proxy with my actual body, allowing me to treat it like any other lump of biomass.
Cool!
I drew in a bit more biomass from the Womb, feeding the proxy. Thousands of tiny structures began to weave simple silk undergarments, while others dispensed cotton-like fibers to form a simple t-shirt and pants over my form. I looked down at the plain clothing, frowning, then decided to take a few minutes to design a proper bra.
My ability to dye the clothing was limited, so I settled for simple solid colors, for the most part. By the time I was done, I had generated an entire new wardrobe for myself. I put the extra clothes aside and started testing my proxy's body. I noticed that my surroundings were a bit blurry without my glasses, and a moment of thought increased all of its sensory capabilities to barely superhuman levels.
That was what allowed me to hear my Dad's car rolling into the driveway.
Oh fuck.
He wasn't supposed to be home until late this evening. My little nap earlier must have eaten up more time than I had expected, or something unexpected had come up. It seemed that my proxy would be getting an unexpected stress test.
I bounded up the stairs, racing for the ground floor before my Dad could manage to enter the house. I slammed the basement door shut seconds before my Dad entered the house, panting from the exertion of running for the first time in my new body. I spent some of my spare biomass on strengthening the proxy's muscles.
The front door opened, and I heard my Dad call out, "Taylor? You home already?"
"Y-yeah," I answered.
I needed to figure out a better way of sensing his location. This was not the first time he had almost caught me in the middle of my work, and it was only due to sheer luck that he did not come home at a more inopportune moment and decide to go exploring down in the basement.
I really, really needed to figure out some way to hide the entrance to the Womb better. A gaping hole in the middle of the basement would only work for so long, even if my Dad seemed to have an aversion to the room.
"You have a good day at school today, kiddo?" He asked me.
"Yeah, sure," I answered noncommittally.
"Sorry if I'm interrupting your plans for the afternoon, kiddo, but we're going to the Boardwalk. I promised that we'd both get new phones yesterday, and I guess I got distracted by this latest job, because it almost slipped my mind. When I remembered what we talked about, I ended up passing off the work to one of my subordinates – not the sort of thing I'd like to do, but I don't want to break my promise to you, Taylor."
"Dad, it's not that big of a deal-" I began, but he cut me off.
"It is. I made a promise, and I intend to follow through. That outfit you're wearing is very classy, by the way – where'd you get it?"
"A friend gave it to me," I lied, "And sure, we can go into town."
"Won't you need your glasses, kiddo?" My Dad frowned.
"It's fine," I told him, "My vision's been getting a little better, actually. I should be fine without them this time."
My Dad said nothing in response. He simply raised one eyebrow and gave me an incredulous look before shaking his head and returning to his truck.
I silently prayed that my proxy's connection had a decent range as I buckled in next to my Dad. Another part of me began actively expanding the Womb's brain, increasing the breadth of its connections with the relay.
Meanwhile, my Dad asked me a question.
"Is everything alright?"
"W-why do you ask? I'm fine," I replied.
"You seem a bit different from this morning. Zoned-out, maybe. Did something happen between then and now?" My Dad questioned me.
I denied it, and he didn't push the issue, thankfully. I was worried that he had begun putting the pieces together about my powers, but I didn't have a good way to figure out how much he knew that wouldn't just cause him to become more suspicious.
By some miracle, my proxy's range extended at least as far south as the Boardwalk without any apparent issues. It seemed that focusing the entire relay on one proxy allowed for a stronger connection than what was possible if I were to try and create many proxies.
Not that I planned to make any other proxies for now; just trying to master control of one would be enough of a task to keep me busy for a while already. Plus, despite its small size, this proxy was expensive to create. Not as much as the relay had been, but the two combined had put a sizable dent in the Womb's stockpiles.
I needed to increase the scale of my biomass-collection operations if I wanted to stay on track with my various projects. I only had five days left until Alexandria arrived, after all, and I wanted – no, needed – to make a good impression.
There were a few issues standing in the way of that goal: the city was overrun with gangs, drugs, and violent crime. Alexandria would no doubt see my potential as a power multiplier, and try to convince the Chief Director to get me stuck assisting some big team – maybe New York or Houston, if she didn't just outright take me for her own team in Los Angeles. I doubted that I would be able to refuse her at the moment.
Alexandria seemed to act as a sort of enforcer for the Chief Director, judging from what I had been able to dig up on the two online. Whenever a problem came up that diplomacy alone could not solve, she sent her own personal juggernaut to straighten things out, usually violently.
I liked Brockton Bay, and I really didn't want to be press-ganged into the PRT, whether it was by a childhood hero of mine or not. I needed to prove that I could handle myself; escalate to a point where I was beyond reproach, even for someone as powerful as Alexandria. I needed to genuinely catch her off guard and impress her, if I wanted to maintain any autonomy or negotiating power for myself.
I did my best to pretend that I was paying attention as my Dad showed me different phone models, comparing their merits. I went with a cheap-yet-effective flip phone, and my Dad selected a Nokia, similar to the one he had owned before my Mom died.
Meanwhile, I was busy encouraging the connections within the relay to grow. It seemed that the more data I collected for it, the more efficiently it operated as a whole, making everything work fractionally better – less delay, quicker self-biokinesis, and other minor improvements.
Not that I could test those changes out in the phone store, but I would have plenty of time for that tomorrow. I would finally be hanging out with Vista – I planned to mostly treat it as a day off from all of the stress that had been accumulating over the past few weeks, but I'd probably wind up doing a few chores in the afternoon, too.
Hopefully Vista would agree to assist with some of my riskier ideas for later on in the week. She knew Brockton Bay's Downtown far better than I did, after all, and I planned for her to play a pivotal role in the upcoming conflict.
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A/N 2: Taylor is messing with her sense of self!
Also, what do you guys think of her 'proxy'?
Thanks for reading as always, please leave your thoughts below!