5.2 Carcosa
27th of April, 2011
The by now familiar feeling of newly comprehended knowledge hits my neurons with all the subtlety of an Exterminatus sanction to the heretic planet, and an entirely too-wide grin stretches all over my face as I make a little jig from inside the safety of my comfy bed sheets.
"Yes!" I hiss under my breath, "Nanobots, get!"
Now, you may be wondering 'Jacky, how could you pull cracking nanotechnology in the span of two days while you had none of the tools beforehand, and why didn't you do the same when you still had W40K?'.
The answer to that is actually quite simple–
"You'll be getting all the incense for that, little guy," I fondly pat an almost whizzing Dell as its fans whirs and clicks from exertion.
–because I didn't have an over tuned Machine-Spirit and ARC-V hologram tech's nonsense at my disposal the last time!
"And an upgrade," I add after giving my oldest ally on this Earth a concerned look and a moment's thought, "You're definitely going to need it."
My reasoning once my bout of existential dread came to pass on Monday had been that I would've to write my future nanodendrites' program anyway to fully grok it, so why not directly program into Dell first, and see if I couldn't use its holographic-nanobots to craft myself real ones. After all, the microscopic machines are tools, if very advanced ones, and I already knew that using Dell's holograms to make the tools needed for me to craft something with hits some kind of a blank spot for my version of the Tinker of Fiction.
Now, it didn't work at first when I automated the entire process by asking Dell to run it for me, but it did work when I took the metaphorical helm and directed each steps the holographic-nanobots had to take to build my first ever – technically, second, but who's counting? – real-nanobot!
Even better, since all of this happens at a scale that is so ridiculously tiny the human mind has difficulty understanding it, I had been free to do all of this – programming, then building – from the comfort of my bedroom.
𝅘𝅥𝅮Ce que je préfère, c'est quand je travaille au lit,𝅘𝅥𝅮 I singsong under my breath, before giggling while kicking my feet under my comforter.
"I'm gonna upscale so hard, it's not even funny," I dreamily sigh, "Thanks for the hard work, little guy, I'll swear I'll make it up to you as soon as I can."
Tired and grumpy Machine-Spirit noises ensue, and I go to sleep with the biggest smile ever on my face.
***
"–to Jacky," I blink my current daydream and lock eyes with Louise across the cafeteria table, "Back with us?"
"I apologize," I flush a little, "I was lost in my own thoughts. What were you saying?"
After all, I can't exactly come out and admit that I've been furiously thinking about my options with Murder Drones' tech and haven't paid one lick of attention to the ongoing talks since lunch started. That'd be more than a little awkward to explain.
"Yeah, we kinda saw that," my friend snorts, "We were talking about the Blue Devil. Missy says she should get locked up, Caroline and Adelaide are on the fence, and I was arguing about letting her free to deal with the Bay's perverts. Therefore, you're our designated tie-breaker."
I make a little noise of understanding while taking a bite of spinach.
"I mean," I start with as soon as I finish swallowing, "I honestly don't care either way?"
And, oddly enough, my reasoning isn't entirely motivated by the fact that I'd be surprised if the PRT managed to indefinitely contain a sufficiently motivated Dark-chan, let alone kill her.
"On one hand, a cape running around killing people is a bad thing," mostly for my own, already rather spotty record, if it ever gets known that she's technically my familiar, "Since nobody should be judge, jury and executioner in a perfect society; on the other hand, our society is far from being perfect, and if her continued antics – assuming she doesn't get caught – ends up turning the Bay into a safe space for the more vulnerable people, then I honestly have a hard time seeing it as a bad thing. She's only gone after bad people so far, right?" I ask our now-unmasked Ward.
The blonde looks like she just swallowed a lemon for a beat, before sighing and begrudgingly nodding.
"So far? Yes," she grumbles while pushing around her own spinach with her fork in her plate, her head mulishly propped up against her other hand, "I'm not at liberty to talk about her victims' records, but… some people will probably miss them, but less than you'd think."
"What an elegant way to say that they were basically scum of the earth," I drawl, before snorting, "Well I, for one, do honestly feel far safer knowing I live in a city where Mastering someone is a nearly instantaneous death-sentence by Blue Devil. But I'm biased after growing up next to Ziz' Bomb Central, so do take my own feelings on the matter with a grain of salt," I pause, before adding, "Though I do agree that this is a shame that things came down to that in the first place, and it would be infinitely better if it wasn't needed."
I frown, before asking.
"What even brought this on anyway?" I ask, feeling honestly rather confused by the topic.
"...One of my colleagues saw what she did to someone who was mistreating another girl while on patrol," she slowly explains, "And it left her rather conflicted, and quite vocal about it."
"Ah," I nod in understanding, "Was it like, you know, last Monday, with–"
"Nothing like that, no," she blurts out, and only now do I notice how ill-looking both Caroline and Adelaide look, "More like… the guy was apparently drunk, and tried to slap her after she appeared, and she glared at him to death. Literally."
"...Mildly horrifying, I admit," I answer with the straightest of straight face, knowing all too well that I'm perfectly able to replicate the feat if pushed, "Let's break this down: what got your colleague in a tizzy, and why did she make a fuss about it?"
I'm about… ninety-ish percent sure she's talking about dear TayTay here, since the girl left an impression with her show back at Winslow, and I honestly don't see a world where the local Director would let her go back to doing her independent heroic shtick after soloing the entirety of the Fallen cell that tried to take her hostage. This also explains why she 'saw' Dark-chan's handiwork in real-time, since I wager that Mama Mathers' sensory deprivation must have pushed her Sechen ranges by a lot all by itself.
Kinda ironic that she ended up being the one refining the weapon that took a dozen of her patsies in one go, but that's life on Bet for you, I suppose.
Honestly? Ending up with the Wards this early is probably a good thing for the girl, doubly so since Sophia got the boot and Lisa is apparently making it work under Piggot's directorship. I still don't know how that came to be, and admit to being more than a little curious about the exact circumstances that led to it, because I'm sure it's worthy of a serialized drama in itself. Neither of them would have pissed on the other if they were on fire during canon, so I keep having whiplash over it.
But what defines Taylor Hebert as an individual is her bullheadedness at being the hero of her own story, be it on the Undersiders' side as the one who's willing to make the tough choices for the good of the Bay like in canon; or apparently like we've got here, and as the one individual somehow taking offense at Dark-chan giving no quarter with people of a non-heroic bend – because I politely asked and she agreed – assaulting her.
"The murderous vigilante, and because she's murderous," Missy answers back a little flatly.
"You know what? Fair," I answer while trying to hide my own amusement, "Well, trigger-happy vigilantes aren't exactly novel, so I'm honestly kind of surprised that it seems to upset her so much. At least, it's cleaner than what Lustrum pulled off, and this was vigilantism too."
"How do you even know about that?" Adelaide interjects.
"Because of her," I give Louise the stink eye, my friend raising her hands in the air in an apologetic way that I don't buy for even one second on account of the smile on her face, "I could give you the name of at least five French cape who pulled the same kind of stunt, but their names would mean nothing to you, hence why I'm taking an American example here. And I digress. Like I said earlier, with the advent of parahumans, our society started crashing, making it more and more imperfect. And sure, heroes try their best, but they can't be everywhere. That's how you get violent, sometimes murderous, vigilantes. People who get powers and decide to take matters into their own hands after already losing the trust they had in the law."
I take another bite of spinach, quickly chew and swallow, before carrying on.
"Now, I'm not saying that we should worship them. But I don't think reviling them is a good idea either," I make a circular gesture with the tip of my fork in the air, "These vigilantes that feel like the law isn't doing enough appear as an answer to an already existing problem. In my opinion, the best way to deal with them isn't to put them behind bars – although they totally belong there – but to make it so they don't have a reason to take matters into their own hands in the first place. Mostly by making sure we stop acting like dicks to each other."
I take a sip of water, before explaining further.
"Take Lustrum for example. Raging feminist who got powers. Ended up castrating quite a few guys for whom the word 'no' didn't belong in their personal thesaurus, and got Birdcaged for it," I quickly rattle, "Now, I'm not saying that if the law's stance on nonconsensual sexual rapport was both harsher and quicker to react, she wouldn't have found another reason to go off the bend somewhere down the line, but maybe it'd be wise to look at the situation, sit back, and ponders about what we have learned here."
"That not being a dick to each other is better for our health?" Louise answers back with humor while the other girls look pensive at my words.
"It's as good a rule of thumb as any to live a happier life," I shrug, before adding, "At least that's what papa always said."
"So, what you're saying is, that rather than getting angry at the Blue Devil, it'd be smarter to not give her any reason to kill any people?" Missy asks back, her brows creased in a frown.
"Well, assuming, again, that she doesn't get caught, the Bay's population will eventually get the memo. But what about the rest of the state? The country? Hell, even the world?" I pointedly remark, "That is my point. Don't treat the symptoms, treat the disease. Don't get angry at the Blue Devil, get pissed off at the child abusers, and find a way so that this stops being a thing in the first place."
I take another sip of water before concluding.
"Again, not saying she doesn't belong behind bars, just that this is the first step and that we shouldn't stop here. You'd only end up leaving the spot empty for a future copycat," I fall silent as I take another bite of spinach.
A quiet settles heavily on the table as everyone ponders my words, Louise eventually breaking it with a sigh as she scratches at the back of her head.
"Yeah, this one's on me," I lock eyes puzzledly with her, and she smirks, "I gave Miss Thesaurus an opening, and she took it. Can't argue against that now or I'm going to end up feeling silly."
I scowl back at her with my cheeks all puffed up in outrage, the rest of my friends tittering at my expense.
Though the mood does lift up due to her antics afterward, so I guess I shouldn't blame her for it.
[AN: Nanobots, getto!
Downside of playing Big Brother all over the city through bug-sense is that you end up seeing a lot of things you'd rather haven't, like being on a front-row seat to an asshole getting their comeuppance by Dark-chan.
Honestly, I don't know why I went on a rant about vigilantism of all things here, but it works in the story, so I decided to keep it. :3